Humidity
by thoth-moon
Summary: Kuwabara's proposed, and a summer wedding is on the pending. Hiei ruminates on the loss of something unfulfilled, and something more than the weather is weighing down. Sequel to "Black Roses."
1. Heat

**A/N:** Here's the promised sequel to last year's "Black Roses." As before, the story will concentrate on Hiei, but Hiei himself is also the more central character in this one, if that makes sense.

The time is set a few months after the ending of "Black Roses"—at the juncture of spring and summer, when the weather's starting to get more intense and _stifling…_

**Summary: **Kuwabara's proposed, and a summer wedding is on the pending. Hiei ruminates on the loss of something unfulfilled, and something more than the weather is weighing down.

**Contains (or will contain): **angst, language, rumination, sex and mention there of, soap (just you wait and see), ... that's all that I can think of for now. 

* * *

Humidity  
Chapter I  
Heat  
April 22, 2008

"Did you fall?"

The inquiry jolted Hiei from his doze. Craning his neck, he found a pair of green eyes, offset by slightly frizzed red hair and a face wearing a faint pink flush, peering curiously down at him. "It's hot," he said flatly. And the earth in his friend's flower bed was cool. Offhandedly he added: "Your plants are wilting."

Kurama regarded the bed's other occupants—the fragrant herbs, the various flowers, the red rose bush that he favored, and even a brief glance at its less appealing counterparts on the apartment's face. "It's the weather. Things have a tendency to grow drowsy from it." He allotted a moment's pause, before betraying the slightest of smiles, saying, "If you relocated inside you'd be less prone to someone sneaking up on you."

Scowling, Hiei climbed to his feet and attempted to brush the soil from his naked arms and back. Overall this proved unsuccessful; as the air perspired, so did he, and everything clung. "Shouldn't you be at your mother's or something?" It was past the time his lover usually came home.

"And leave you here, prey to whoever happens by?"

"I wasn't completely asleep," Hiei retorted.

"Of course. Just mostly." His scowl deepened. "Actually, I talked to Kuwabara for a while."

He pretended to be interested in the cicadas nearby so as to conceal his further clouded expression. "About?"

"What do you think?"

It was rhetorical. "I'm taking a shower," he announced.

"Hiei." He looked. Casually Kurama said "I dislike sounding fussy, but your feet…" He rolled his eyes, but waited for the Fox to enter the house ahead of him and provide him with a damp rag.

For a while he just stood under the shower head, letting the water run over and cool him. And then he soaped a washcloth and began to scrub. The suds flowed down and accentuated the drawn parts of his body, remnants of the past winter's waste. Testament to the weight of the weather: most of the time he kept well-covered so as to avoid inquiries about his recent "illness." He had been ill, though not as most of his contemporaries interpreted it. Mukuro of course had witnessed and criticized it, and he suspected that despite superficial indicators, Kurama understood.

'What do you think?' Kurama knew well enough. He had been ill, and he was wary of a prospective relapse.

* * *

"Air!" gasped Yusuke almost reverently, holding out his arms as though beckoning it toward him.

"You'd think he's never experienced AC before," Kuwabara muttered.

In the same jovial manner that he had entered the restaurant, the brunette replied, "Fuck you, Kuwabara—_you _didn't spend the last month in the desert. Can you believe Yomi goes there on _retreat? _The guy's got all that forest, and he goes to the freakin' desert by my place."

Kurama shrugged. "The desert is open, Yusuke. You can empathize with its convenience for training."

"Yeah, I heard you've been up there with him before. You're both nuts."

Quirking an eyebrow—Hiei had not heard of this desert trip—, the Jaganshi shrugged it off and sipped his iced raspberry-mocha cappuccino, and paid the exchange no mind until Kuwabara scolded their friend with an adamant "Urameshi!" Everything then went oddly quiet. Looking up, he observed the one with a horrified look on his face, the other resembling someone caught in a taboo act, Keiko and Yukina wearing guarded expressions, and Shizuru exchanging an eye roll with Kurama. Understanding the reason for pause now, he snorted and said, "Kurama might have been evaluated, but you're both stupid beyond belief."

"Hey, _I _was trying to be polite!" Kuwabara defended, nonetheless glancing at the other redhead inquisitively. Kurama smiled and shrugged again—no offense taken. "_Anyway_," he continued, leaning back in his chair. "We wanted you guys to be here today—"

"Who the hell's 'we'? When are we ordering lunch?"

"I'm trying to say something, Urameshi!"

Hiei rolled his eyes, and stared into his cup. Almost empty. He was going to get a refill when he noticed how Kurama was watching the carrot-top with a curious look on his face. Interested himself now, he shifted in his seat and observed Kuwabara closely. There was an anxiousness in the latter's face and gestures, more than just impatience with Yusuke. To his surprise, it was starting to make _him _anxious as well.

"I used to think that demons and humans couldn't get along so well," Kuwabara confessed.

'Define "Black Black Club",' Hiei thought darkly.

"But then I got to know some personally, and realized that they can be model citizens" (Kurama raised a bemused eyebrow) "and delinquent bastards" (Hiei snorted) "just like us" (Yusuke chortled). "And we can get along, and even—"

"Spit it out, Little Bro," muttered Shizuru. Several stomachs growled in agreement.

"_Fine._" Kuwabara raised his eyebrows, spread his hands. Bluntly: "I asked Yukina to marry me."

A piece of ice shot up Hiei's straw and stung the back of his throat. Kurama calmly slid his own water glass toward the coughing Jaganshi. "Congratulations," he told psychic and ice maiden warmly.

"Yeah," Yusuke seconded dryly. "Really. Because no one saw that coming. Can I order now?"

Kuwabara flipped him off, while Keiko informed him, "Hiei's more romantic that you are, Yusuke."

It might have been ironic, but wasn't. Ever since Hiei had thwarted Kurama's suicide attempt, and visited him in the hospital, the word had latched onto him, regardless of his aloofness or his sharp tongue. He wasn't precisely thrilled with the assessment. Narrowing his eyes, he made to throw out something sarcastic, saw Yukina, and decided to keep quiet.

Until he felt a hand on his back. "What are you doing?!" he hissed at Kurama.

Raising an eyebrow, the Fox removed the offending appendage. "Your shoulders tensed up."

"Right. He's _so _much more romantic than I am."

"Shut up, Detective," muttered the smaller brunette. Rolling his shoulders, he gave his lover a last irritated look, then turned his attention to Yukina and Kuwabara. "… Hn," he finally managed. He'd meant to offer some form of congratulation.

"Uh, I'll take it that that's his form of a blessing," Kuwabara said to his fiancée. Hiei cringed a little inside as the impact of the word sunk in.

* * *

Kurama was cooking dinner. The smell pervaded the cracked bathroom door and found its way to Hiei's nostrils as he dried off. His stomach growled. Despite his listlessness, his appetite hadn't gone away like it had during the winter.

After the engagement announcement Kurama had admitted to him that Shiori's remarriage had been a mild stressor for himself at first. But Kurama had misunderstood, sort of. The marriage to be itself didn't upset Hiei, terribly—even he had to (grudgingly) agree with Yusuke. More grudgingly, he acknowledged Kuwabara's feelings for Yukina and the ice maiden's reciprocation.

… How long before the term "ice maiden" was no longer appropriate? Or, was it already—?

There went the appetite. If Kurama asked, he would blame it on the heat.


	2. Relations

This chapter probably could have been longer, but I'm sensing that this won't be an especially long story—right now six chapters is looking like an adequate estimate—so I'm saving some of the could-have-been-in-this-chapter content for the next one.

For the opening scene of this chapter I got to thinking about that one vignette in _Fantasia _with the devil character on the mountain, though how accurate my recollection is I'm unsure—I haven't seen that movie in many, many years.

* * *

Humidity  
Chapter II  
Relations  
June 17, 2008

It was white, but not the all-encompassing, excessive white that incurred the overwhelming, helpless feeling of trying to find a silver fox in a snowstorm. This was a white accented with washed-out pastels: yellow, lavender, rose, blue, turquoise. They glowed off the icicles and rime adorning the trees, the mass shards of hydro-diamond covering the ground; they colored the early morning sky, making the setting calm.

Her breath frosted as she broke the delicate sheet of ice that had formed over the water container's surface.

Smoke appeared, billowing out across the sky until there was no sky left. The frozen ornaments of the forest began to melt rapidly and run to the ground, blackened by soot. They mixed and became a thick, inky concoction that bled through and stained her shoes and kimono. She stumbled and slipped, coughing, choking on the smoke.

Her struggle became inaudible as the temple exploded with a roar, unable to withstand the pressure. A massive flame rose from the structure's center, black and red, into the dark canopy, burning, smothering.

Destroying.

* * *

Gasps, rapid and uneven. Sweat everywhere, a cold glue for the sheet tangled round him. Drenched bangs hung in his eyes and made his vision black. Pushing them back with a trembling hand, he inventoried his surroundings. Early morning: dark room; dusky blue sky outside. Beside him the bed was made, a sharp contrast to the wreck that his side was. Downstairs he could hear Kurama moving around. Habit more than necessity, as the Fox didn't work today.

His "peers" there treated him differently now, Hiei had learned. Now, meaning since his return after hospitalization and whatever one might dub the time-lapse after. "Readjustment," perhaps. Hiei shied from the usage of "recovery" because the base issue was perhaps irreparable, only—maybe—reconcilable; but at least Kurama wasn't suffering chronic melancholia and spontaneous bouts of weeping. Designation regardless, the Jaganshi had observed during his lunch time visits the behavior his friend's presence elicited from the other employees. If they didn't outright gawk at the redhead (humans apparently lacked polish), they put too much perceivable effort into not looking. Were he the other, paranoia would most likely have driven him to incinerate—no, he was hypothetically Kurama—to set plants of immense scale outfitted with sharp thorns and potent venom, on the majority of the employment already. Instead, Kurama behaved obliviously, only betraying his awareness via an offhand comment to Hiei, moving on to matters that he considered of greater import.

For instance, to Hiei's chagrin, Yukina.

* * *

"Kuwabara and Yukina want my help with the wedding," broached the Fox casually.

Hiei took a moment to scan the room in a faux bored fashion. Damn air conditioning: no heat to use as an excuse to escape. "You could probably make a killing opening some specialty flower shop," he muttered, putting a particular stress on the last two words.

"Flowers are considered an integral part of this sort of occasion," Kurama agreed, "among scores of other things." His voice sounded tired suddenly, but promptly picked back up. "Fortunately I don't predict as much care necessary to this as to one of a more conventional nature. One essential element to a wedding is uniting the two families, and since Kuwabara's kin consists of Shizuru; and Yukina's brother…" Hiei bristled involuntarily. "… Has for whatever reason condemned her to be a lonely bride," Kurama resumed—earning a scathing look from his companion—, "'family' here would better be defined by our basic group, which is already well-acquainted." Leaning back, he concluded, "It'll definitely be a montage, considering the unusual circumstances overall, but less stressful than Mother's wedding."

Speak for yourself, Hiei wanted to say, but didn't feel entitled to. He hadn't been present on that occasion. "Your words, or Yukina's?" he murmured.

Kurama looked pensive, and he couldn't determine whether this was good or not. "She's not starved for affection, otherwise I doubt this wedding would be taking place. However, this is a milestone in her life—probably the most altering thus far—passing with her mission still unfulfilled.

His word choice made Hiei pause, reminding the half-Koorime of a time not long past when a few specific missions had been his main drive in life. But those of the full Koorime's couldn't be so deciding, right?

Sometimes he wondered if Kurama was a secret telepath, though more likely the centuries of problem-solving had made his proficient at reading into a person's features. For suddenly the Kitsune said melodically: "'Opposites are of course likes in reality; when things reach the limit of contrariety, and stand at the furthest bounds of divergency, they come to resemble one another. This is decreed by God's omnipotent power, in a manner that baffles entirely the human imagination. Thus, when ice is pressed a long time in the hand, it finally produces the same effect as fire.'" When the only reaction Hiei could accomplish was a blank stare, Kurama cited: "Ibn Hazm (1) illustrated a valid point; and contrary to what you choose to believe, I don't think that Yukina and you are the opposing extremes that you would frame her and you to be."

Figured that Kurama would wait until the end of his lunch hour to assert that, when any rebuttal on Hiei's part would be cut short by his returning to work. So Hiei offered none, and settled on giving his lover a look that conveyed his thoughts on this sneaky tactic.

"Of course," Kurama added, collecting his things, "I pray that Ibn Hazm isn't fully applicable to your case. I'm unsure how I would handle that."

"Excuse me?" Hiei didn't follow.

Until with an evil little smirk the other demon elaborated: "His is a treatise on romantic love."

* * *

Kurama's sense of humor, reflected Hiei unappreciatively, was still very much warped.

No chance of Kurama having mistaken himself work-bound this morning. Today's attire was a turquoise button-up shirt and khaki pants, hardly corporate. His hair, wavy anyhow, had as late grown frizzy with the weather, and was presently bound back in a loose ponytail. Standing at the stove, his back turned out, he nonetheless casually asked, "Nightmare?" as Hiei came into the kitchen.

Denying it would have been futile; they shared a bed. "Did I scream or something?"

"Whatever it was, it belonged to the silent genre of horror." Still focused o the stove, the redhead retrieved two more eggs from the carton on the counter and cracked them open, depositing their contents in the pan. "Although, you were thrashing a lot."

Translation: "You kicked me." "Sorry," he replied, resting his face in one hand.

Scrambled eggs in front of him, orange juice to his left, Kurama seated across from him. He took a couple of bites, then paused when he noticed the amused look his lover threw his way. "You hair," supplied the Fox when he raised an eyebrow.

Just getting out of bed, he hadn't paid any grooming to it yet. "And yours?" he retorted.

Kurama began to eat instead of responding. Pausing, he inquired: "What was it about?" Hiei mimicked his response-alternative. "You're not wearing your cloak."

Usually he did, even in this weather. Just getting out of bed, however, he'd thrown on a pair of pants and nothing else. He had nothing physical to conceal from Kurama, who'd already seen everything there was to see. But who had apparently not run out of things to comment on yet. To the other demon's knowledge he'd contracted a sickness over the winter, accounting for his slightly wasted physique. However, though his friend seemed placated with this explanation, it wasn't winter anymore, and naturally the Kitsune had grown suspicious over why he hadn't recovered when he already should have. Expecting some comment conveying such, he said nothing, and waited for Kurama to continue.

"I'm glad," the latter surprised him. "You were inviting heatstroke, and I'm not eager to see the interior of a hospital anytime soon, again."

Guilt. Hiei's eyes didn't crave anymore of that suppressive white either.

* * *

While Kurama was almost certainly the wealthiest in powers of intelligence in what the Fox had recently defined to be their "family," he was not the only one with powers of observation. Everyone had at some time or other remarked on his self-alleged illness. Yukina had been the first, after Kurama, to inquire on it, as made sense of course—she was after all a healer. This helped to canonize his alibi, and no one's commentary made much deviation from this supposition, even without much detail aside from his proclamation, "I have been ill."

Except, possibly, for once when the detective and the clown joked about him being "love-sick." It surprised and annoyed him simultaneously; the two idiots had no idea how right they were.

Everyone may have made comment, but Kurama, naturally, was the most tenacious in his. "You can try to cover it up," mused the Fox recently, "—and wearing that clock right now isn't practicable, by the way—, but she's noticed anyhow."

His eyebrow had twitched in consternation. "Just because she's learned that you won't lapse if she takes her eyes off you doesn't mean she should transfer her nurturing neurosis to _me_."

Giving him a pointed look, Kurama had replied mildly, "I wasn't referring to my mother."

Realization was immediate. His companion had gone outside soon after, but he lingered, staring pensively at the mirror mounted on Kurama's door, wondering how someone who had at their disposal three eyes, one a Jagan no less, lacked such perception.

* * *

"Are you … of questionable sense?"

Kurama gave Yusuke a quizzical look. "'Of questionable sense'?"

Shrugging, the brunette said, "Apparently I'm not PC enough or sensitive enough or—Okay, fuck it, I don't care: if I hear you're hangin' around in the desert again, everything else aside, you _are _fucking nuts."

Dismissing Yusuke's concern with a smile, Kurama replied, "I'm not going to the desert this time. I'll actually be closer to Mukuro's territory than to yours."

Hiei listened curiously. Already knowing, this time, that Kurama was going to the Ganderran territory, he had imagined the capital. This was the first he'd heard otherwise.

"You're being dragged all over the place," Yusuke observed. Jokingly: "What are you guys conspiring?"

Matter-of-factly the Fox answered, "In just a few years Yomi has ruled one third of the Makai, disbanded kingship over it, and then reclaimed it. Gestures of stability are wise protocol."

From his place lying on the couch Hiei wondered how calling a humanized demon with self-professed identity issues to different extremes of one's territory at spastic intervals made a convincing gesture of stability. Out of the corner of his eye, sitting at the table, he could see Yusuke wearing a weird expression. "Wasn't he supposed to be the reasonable king? Maybe he shouldn't have been so spontaneous."

Subtle prejudices toward the king in question aside, Hiei sat up and gave Yusuke a skeptical look.

Kuwabara was more blunt. "Okay Urameshi, maybe I haven't met this guy, but _you're _one to—"

"Don't you have _floral arrangements _to consider or something?"

"Yes I do!" The psychic turned from whatever task he'd been doing at the sink. "Eventually. Right now Yukina's more concerned with finding one of her relations in Demon World that she wants to invite to the wedding."

No one said anything. Then: "Uh, if it's her brother … I don't think she should hold her breath."

Yusuke's comment was negated with a shake of the head. "I think she's kind of given up on her brother. Like, if it happens, it happens, but…" Kuwabara shrugged. "You know, I think that if he knew about her and was interested, he wouldn't still be lost. So maybe he doesn't know, or just doesn't care."

From the other room Hiei felt Kurama's eyes on him. His own he kept trained on the floor.

"So," Yusuke ventured, "if it's not her brother…"

"Friend of her mother," Kuwabara answered. "Raised her after her mom died."

"Rui," the psychic named in his usual tone. "Yukina thinks she'd come. Only thing is that ice maidens apparently live _above _the rest of Demon World and finding them can be kinda hard."

"Wait. She left home, and now she's not sure how to get back?"

"This group of demons has a history of zealous isolationism, Yusuke," Kurama provided. "Obscurity is their way of life. It would require someone highly qualified to locate their territory; and consider that Yukina hasn't been there in several years."

While Yusuke actually looked considerate Kuwabara shrugged again and said to Kurama, "Well, don't let this king guy pull a Urameshi on his people while you're there; our buddy's never been popular with the demon folk after all."

"Yeah, I'm sure they'd _love _you. Some of them are still adjusting to the whole, humans-aren't-food concept."

Additional banter followed; Hiei didn't distinguish the particulars. They left soon after anyhow, after some talk about a water fight ending with a pun thrown his way; he didn't dignify it with a response; he couldn't.

"I still think you'd excel at that game," remarked Kurama.

Actually, he'd said that of _snowball _fights, and normally Hiei would have jumped to correct him. Right now, however, he didn't feel right. He felt too tense. Breathing was difficult.

Quickly Kurama was beside him, concern on his face and in his voice as he made inquiries. Of course—Kurama was loathe to share his problems with anyone unless, maybe, it was life-threatening—But gods forbid anyone else suffer in solitude. Though Hiei was unable to make any reply the Fox continued speaking in a soothing voice, assuring him that his symptoms—symptoms?—would pass soon, that he would be all right…

Having never experienced a panic attack before, Hiei could only cling to these words of comfort and trust Kurama that they were true.

* * *

"Rui can identify you," Kurama said gingerly.

Hiei nodded, too tired to affirm vocally. His friend had been right, his episode hadn't been long, he'd been functioning normally for the past half-hour. But he didn't feel like talking.

A hand wandered over his back. After his attack Kurama had given him a massage; that much fussing he had allowed. "I thought as much. Even after all the years, someone would still have to recognize you. Being so close to your mother and your sister would make her a favorable candidate."

Better her than one of the others. But then Hiei could obliterate the whole lot of them if it suited him. "She's not as cold as the rest," he finally offered.

"Ice is in every part of the Koorime's being, I've heard," replied the Fox. "Though Yukina's temperament would certainly mislead one."

He tensed a little. "_I'm _more comparable to those frigid crones than she is."

Kurama rubbed his shoulders. "Recall that you're a demon. A hard heart is essential to basic survival in the Makai. Or the Ningenkai—humans are as capable of it as we are. I think that if the occasion called for it, Yukina would be just as capable as you or I." Hiei bristled, but couldn't hold out long against Kurama's hands. "The Koorime in their isolation, however, have fostered this survival skill into a paranoia that makes their sanctuary just as much a prison. Ice is difficult to break through, on either side." Pausing a moment, he then said, "Are you familiar with the tale of the Snow Queen?"

Should he be? "Was she a Koorime?"

"Not in the technical sense. She's a foreign writer's invention (2). In his story she lived in a palace of ice and snow, and kept there a boy whose heart she had frozen. He remained in this arctic temper until the arrival of a girl from his home, whose love freed him from the Snow Queen's bondage. A girl, who was like a sister to him."

Before Hiei could make any comment on this Kurama's hands moved. His eyes widened.

In place of intelligible words was a surprised grunt, which evolved into a soft keen as his companion progressed from just holding to kneading. Aided by the latter he adjusted himself into an upright position, leaning back against Kurama, resting his head at the base of the redhead's throat. With a light groan he opened his legs a little further, making more room between his thighs for Kurama, who promptly made better use of both hands. Hiei began to fidget—more persistent once a pair of lips and a set of teeth took to sucking on and biting at his ear. Sensual laughter answered his movements. One of the hands at his crotch pulled away only to tease his nipples, all the more vulnerable by now, instead. He cried louder and tossed his head. Kurama's mouth quickly claimed his, and it was this that drank in the rest of his groans and sighs and yowls once the hands had done all they could.

Drowsy, he only half-registered Kurama turning him and laying him across the bed, and then lying down beside him. "Don't flatter 'those frigid crones' by relating yourself to them," the Fox murmured. "You do love, and are loved."

He could smell his own sweat, and beneath that Kurama's scent, a heady floral, intensified by the heat, seasonal and their own alike. At ease now, it occurred to him that for all that his companion had done for him this afternoon, he'd yet to reciprocate. Reaching over, he felt that this was hardly from lack of necessity.

"Allow me to love you now," he replied, undoing the buckle above the bulge in Kurama's pants.

* * *

(1) Ibn Hazm, an eleventh century Islamic philosopher from Cordova. His work includes _The Dove's Necklace_, the treatise on love quoted in this chapter, and one of the more down-to-earth pieces of courtly love literature that I've seen, which is one of the reasons I like it enough to reference it here.

(2) Hans Christian Andersen, also responsible for works such as "The Little Match Girl," "The Ugly Ducking," and "The Little Mermaid." The Snow Queen reference was a spontaneous idea that found its way into this last revision of the chapter, but I think it possible to make a more solid link between that story and Hiei's, if one did further probing. Maybe someone could make a parallel fairy-tale fanfic out of it someday.


	3. Freezer Burn

**A/N: **I know, I am very, badly tardy. I can make all the excuses I want and most of them are completely valid, but after a wait like this I think we can all do without the chit-chat and get back to the meat of the matter, eh?

Thank you so much, though, to anyone who began reading this and returns to it now. Fortunately I have begun work on the chapter following this one, and in all honesty I believe there will only be two more chapters after this, so I do hope this has been well worth the wait. If not, don't hesitate to correct me.

Anyway,

Humidity  
Chapter III  
Freezer Burn  
28 July 2011

The humans on television were tramping around in a snowstorm, and Hiei envied their certainly, admittedly, fatal mishap as he lay there watching. The only thing less optimistic on TV right now was the weather forecast.

He only laid two-thirds across the couch. His legs were slung over the far arm, and his own arms had plenty of room left to cross on the all-but-vacant cushion above his head. He wore a billowy pair of pants and no shirt, and idly flexed bare toes while staring lackadaisically at the screen several feet in front of him.

At the very top of his peripheral vision, as he was lying down, he barely perceived a wisp of red creeping past. "I'm not asleep," he said, tucking in his legs, sitting up and looking over at Kurama.

Who in his turn straightened up and adopted a more cavalier pose. "The heat's known to make people drowsy," he replied sheepishly. "I was unsure whether you were drifting off, or only resting."

This face-saving begat a shrug. "It's not that hot," Hiei dismissed. But it was certainly humid, and as Hiei noted the flimsy dress shirt that Kurama wore, he told himself that it would be soaked through with perspiration within ten minutes of the Fox stepping outside. "Where are you going?" he asked, because even Kurama didn't wear something like that to loaf around the house, like he was.

Perceiving his thoughts, Kurama smiled. "I am taking Mother to lunch. It's been a busy week, and I won't see her at all this weekend." Mildly he mentioned, as though an afterthought, "She gets uncomfortable if I don't check in regularly."

Hiei could bet. "What does your family think you do when you're out of town?" he asked, partially because he wanted to enact interest in Kurama's human family, if nothing else, for the human part of Kurama's sake; and partially because Kurama didn't speak elaborately on the specifics he did as Yomi's aide, and Hiei didn't know, these days.

Neutrally: "I am aiding in a friend's matrimonial affairs." Kurama appeared unaware of, or unaffected by, Hiei's stiffening, Hiei's bristling. "I've finished making the necessary inquiries, and I've arranged for a meeting to take place."

Hiei's guts were contracted, as though bunched up and left on a block of ice. He eased back and massaged his stomach. "You word things so neatly," he said coolly.

At the very side of his peripheral vision, as he sat arightnow, he saw Kurama's brows crinkle, then lift and smooth in an enlightened _Ah_. "I don't mean it like that," the Fox said demurely. Hiei stared straight ahead at the television, and watched the monster Yuki-Ohna try to lure the last human straggler alive to lay down to sleep in the middle of the snowstorm. Yuki-Ohna, the Snow Queen. That ice-cold bitch in the story books Hiei had looked through that morning while Kurama was distracted making breakfast. The Fox had been right; an apt comparison indeed.

But now Kurama persisted with a related subject Hiei would much rather he leave cold. "How long did it take you to locate the Floating Isle, even with the aid of the Jagan?" the redhead pointed out. "I sympathize with Yukina's wish, but I respect your ability to do the right thing." Hiei glanced sideways at him—_what _right thing?—but Kurama was still on a role composing his defense: "Besides, I lack the information to coordinate any fulfillment in two days' time, and I'll be in Gandhara all weekend besides."

Then what matrimonial—never mind, Hiei had already discerned from earshot that weddings came attached with many strings, none of which he wished to become personally ensnared in. Instead Hiei grunted an absolving "Hn" and shrugged at Kurama, who replied with a placating smile.

"Would you care to join Mother and me?" Kurama asked as he grabbed his keys from by the door.

Good, a change in route. "I'm not putting anything on that'll stick to me when I try to take it back off," Hiei negated. Kurama laughed at him and he shrugged it off. "Besides, I intimidate the woman."

"You do not," Kurama continued to laugh. "Or if so, not for the reasons you suppose." Hiei raised an eyebrow. "You're something of a myth to her, do you know that? The mysterious man who charmed and saved her son."

Yes, the mysterious man that Shiori Hatanaka had once walked in on naked. Hiei gathered the flesh of his cheek to the flesh just above his eye, and managed an uncertain-sounding exhalation acknowledging what it was Kurama had said.

For his part the Fox had sobered, and now looked pensive. "Mythic indeed," he murmured, and without looking at Hiei he sprung, "You realize they believe that my … problem," he settled upon, "was contingent to you?"

Defeated, Yuki-Ohna showed herself for a monster and spiraled away with the storm. Hiei ignored the television, and stared hard at Kurama. "Excuse me?"

"My feelings for you, more accurately," Kurama elaborated. "When I was in the hospital, I told her and Kazuya that I had been battling an inner demon for a very long time." He pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "Due to your presence here, and your appearance, and act, at my … my sickbed, they construed that I had moved out and turned inward for fear of disapproval. They thought that the anxiety had overcome me."

Hiei stared at the television, but didn't discern what was happening onscreen. "You let them believe that?" he asked, figuring Kurama must have. His choice of alternate explanations that wouldn't make him appear even sicker in the head was limited, and the truth was not among them.

"I did fear their disapproval." Kurama shrugged, his posture and voice that of candid admission. "It wasn't my most imperative worry, in light of more … essential issues, but the conclusion they came to was not a lie, and I granted them that." Hiei continued to look at him, and must have worn an odd expression, because Kurama in turn continued, "I used to feel a similar anxiety towards you too, you know."

Hiei did know; when Kurama confessed his feelings for him, he also confessed a previous fear of disclosing them, wary of an unfavorable, even a violent reception. Of course by then that was subordinate—Kurama wanted, or thought he wanted, to die.

"And did you ever have, what did you call them, 'panic attacks' over me?" he asked the redhead, wondering what was the point of this therapy session.

"You saw me have one the night we consummated our relationship," Kurama told him. He blinked; it was an unexpected answer. "But I find that often, that sort of anxiety is unfounded, and more than often, the people we feel it over would never want us to suffer so for them."

Rerouted. _That _was Kurama's intention, then. Hiei straightened up, rolled his eyes. "Fox," he dismissed, "take your mother to lunch. Tell her I say Hello."

Kurama smiled again, that cavalier smile of being found out and not caring. "Food for thought, Hiei, since you're backing out of lunch."

"I can't back out of something I never agreed to!" Hiei threw hotly at Kurama's back as he left.

* * *

Knowing nothing until recently about panic attacks, Hiei hadn't recognized Kurama's behavior the night they first went to bed as such. Confronted with something that disjointed him to the marrow, Kurama had gone into flight mode, and there had been much scrambling before Hiei caught and steadied him.

Were that Hiei had that mobility, because even in his dreams, panic seized him and locked his limbs.

Locked his limbs but not his mind, and even asleep he noted the irony that it was him held down and helpless as a baby bird, and _her _that loomed large and threatening as a dragon. Her breath cut him with its chilliness, froze him until all he was aware of was that desperate burning sensation, more gripping than fire and more loathe to release that grip.

He winced as she stroked his cheek. In the dream her fingers ended in sharp claws and raked his skin; blood steamed in the freezing air, rapidly cooled and solidified in splotches on his face, until he resembled some stained glass grotesque.

"Go to sleep," she beckoned him sweetly. His eyelids fluttered, but one eye cracked open warily. Smiling, she wagged one claw in rebuke, then drew it over his eye, peeling open white and iris like a grape, then jabbing down the pupil, and plucked the entire thing out. The flesh around his socket puckered in a sense of compliance.

"Go to sleep," she implored cheerily. He shut his eye but drew no rest from it; with her pointer claw she traced little nonsense patterns over the lid until it tore to fragments and tore away, exposing his eye to insolence and performing the same manner of rebuke over again. Two bereft sockets stared impotently up to her.

"Go to sleep, Emiko," she ordered authoritatively. "And never wake up."

Something burned, not the gripping hostile burn of frostbite, but an abrasive, propelling burn, fuel in a machine. He saw again, vision frostedand incomplete, like staggering through a snowstorm, but sufficient enough to detect anything treacherous.

"_NO!_" he snarled, lashing out at last, and it was not Yukina he hit, because the snow-woman had transmogrified into a hoarycrone, whose shrieks stung on the wind as she flung herself away from him. The frozen currents enveloped her, and then disappeared, and Hiei stood blinking in the sun.

* * *

And Hiei woke blinking on the couch. He'd fallen asleep, and the TV channel was showing the movie over again. Yuki-Ohna had spiraled away into the night, and the human awoke in the morning, only to discover that he and his fallen comrades had spent the night in circles mere feet away from their camp.

"Fuck you, Kurosawa," Hiei muttered, cursing the man who created the movie, created the movie out of his dreams. He held his head in his hand, and felt tired despite the hour and a half approximate that he had slept. The door opened; he looked up and saw Kurama step in. One hand clutched the Fox's keys, the other lifted his hair up off of his neck. His hair was engorged from the moisture, and rebel strands stuck to the slick of his skin. Hiei had been right to wager the humidity's effect on his friend's outfit, just as Kurama had been right to wear the undershirt that was perfectly outlined and all but perfectly visible under his attire by now.

Kurama either gave up or achieved the moment's airy reprieve, because he released the sprayof hair that was compliant, and it fell messilyover his shoulders. Kurama rumpled, tousled from the heat reminded Hiei of another storybook figure he'd encountered that morning: the effeminate knight Saint George, slayer of the dragon.

Kurama caught him looking and smiled. "Fell asleep after all?"

"Is your mother with you?" Hiei asked.

"No, why—?"

A blur as Hiei vaulted the couch and pinned the Fox to the wall. He did the courtesy of unbuttoning the shirt, not ripping, and Kurama did him the courtesy of shrugging out of it. It fell and hung limply, pinned between the wall and Kurama's ass. Hiei reached down Kurama's pants and untucked the undershirt, pushing it up and pushing his hands up under it. The flesh beneath was firm from their sparring matches, and tight from the meal digesting within, and Hiei smirked a little at the grunt he elicited when he pressed down. Slowly he massaged Kurama's stomach, and worked his hands upward, until he palmed the curveof Kurama's ribs, felt the hardness of solid sternum under the Fox's flesh. He parted his hands either way then, found Kurama's nipples already standing at attention, and pinched them, tugging on them hard.

The flesh beneath his hold rose and fell with increased rhythm. Kurama ceased panting and pressed his lips together; took a deep breath, throwing himself further into Hiei's mercy—and reached up and seized Hiei's hands, interlacing their fingers. He pulled them down, pressing them against the juncture of Hiei's legs. "Inspiring naptime?" the Fox teased.

Hiei swayed his hips, unlaced his fingers and clasped them around Kurama's wrists, insurance against teasing. "I dreamt," he panted.

Kurama looked amused. "Of?"

O that cavalier smile. "Saint George," he detracted.

A confused wrinkle in Kurama's forehead. "The dragon-slayer?"

Hiei threw Kurama over the couch, and himself after him.

They didn't lie together for long after. Despite his loneliness, his funk, and despite Kurama's more-than-willingness to help dispel said loneliness, it was too hot for stagnant physical contact.

Kurama stirred as Hiei dropped off the couch and stretched out on the floor. "There's room to be had, you know," he murmured to the floor, drawing up his legs and revealing ample seating space left.

"Luxuriate," Hiei declined. The floor was cooler anyhow.

Kurama put his legs back down. "How do you know Saint George?"

"Are your books exclusively for you to read now?" Hiei replied. He rolled to an angle on his side and glanced at the television. Another dream was on; demons in the ruins of a city. The demons used to be human.

"I didn't dream of Saint George," he said at last. "I dreamt a Koorime ripped out my eyes."

Quiet. Kurama looked thoughtful.

Then.

"I sometimes dream that crows rip at my flesh," the redhead said, slowly, musingly. "After the first few occurrences, I wondered that they never took my eyes."

Hiei said nothing. Sometimes Kurama betrayed the barest hints of struggle while he slept, and the struggle could be against a plethora of things, such was the store of potential bogeymen when Yoko slept under your skull.

"They always leave my face intact," Kurama concluded, then raised his eyebrows, as though sweeping his mind clear, looked at Hiei, and said, "If you do object to me even giving Kuwabara and Yukina information…"

Hiei shrugged the shoulder he wasn't lying on. "What do you know," he reminded him, "that's of actual use?"

"I put her in contact with Toya," Kurama tested.

The Jaganshi rolled onto his back, looked up at Kurama with an expression that feigned, _So what? _"Not all ice apparitions are the same, and they certainly don't all talk to each other. Do foxes all talk to each other?"

"Sometimes we do," Kurama murmured.

"What?" Hiei had made that last inquiry rhetorically. "Hn," he dismissed. "Toya's a male, which makes his status as ice apparition nil in relation to the Floating Isle."

Never mind that Toya, as a former shinobi, would be adept at gathering obscure information, and doing so discretely.

Hiei thrashed his head either way, popping his neck. "Stop cross-examining yourself so often," he told Kurama. "You were correct in your statement earlier: nothing you have to offer jeopardizes me."

And all the while he said this, Kurama looked down at him with heavy features, an expression that seemed apologetic, or at least pitying.

He soon became aware of this, as did Kurama become aware of him looking back. The heavy expression lightened into a smile. "Have you seen the beginning of this film before, Hiei?"

The movie was part-way done when Hiei came upon it the first time; he'd slept through the beginning this time. "No," he said simply.

"You should catch it sometime. The first dream is about a foxes' wedding." He peeled himself off the couch, straightened his pants, and gathered up his discarded shirts. "Any thoughts on dinner?" he asked. Hiei shrugged. "You need to eat."

"Didn't you just come back from lunch?" the half-Koorime retorted.

Kurama wore a funny expression when he looked down at him this time. "I could eat again," the Fox said, in a tone too carefully neutral to be genuine. Hiei parted his lips away from his teeth, a nonverbal _I'll bet._

"We could go out," Kurama continued, arranging his hair over one shoulder. "I'll buy you an iced coffee." He smiled over at Hiei and shrugged. "I'll be in Gandhara all weekend. I leave early in the morning to avoid the heat."

And Kurama would be mobile in Gandhara; no point in paying a "diplomatic" visit for the weekend.

"We could go out," Hiei conceded, tipping his chin at Kurama in a curt nod, while leaning forward and assembling his limbs in a strategic crouch. "We could go out later."

He pounced.

* * *

**A/N: **The movie Hiei was watching is Akira Kurosawa's _Dreams_, a movie that is a compilation of segments allegedly based on his own dreams. The dreams referenced in this chapter are "The Blizzard" (the third dream), "The Weeping Demon" (the seventh dream) and "Sunshine Through the Rain" (the first dream).

I don't particularly remember how Saint George got tossed into a chapter that drew so much from Yuki-Ohna. That was a development that occurred only in the past few days while I was revising and writing the end of the chapter. Using the description "cavalier" might have been the culprit, but I thought because of the dragon it tied to the other things nicely enough. Let me know if it worked?


	4. Forecast

**A/N: **Let me be the first to remark upon the absurdity of my not coming back to task, i.e. completing this story, until the humidity of my own clime has given way to the drab and chill that I sincerely hope is only Late Fall Preview—because otherwise where did my crisp but nice days go? . Naturally, the change in weather must be because I opted yesterday (the first really cool, in the sense of temperature, day we've had this month) to get my leg tattooed, which meant that late evening I still had to go about outside with my pant-leg rolled up, haha.

But I digress; it's still summer in the story. So, using some literary terms here, or at least terms as taught to me in my 8th grade English class, consider this chapter the last of the Rising Action; next chapter shall feature the stormy climax (which may not be exactly what one may envision following the words "stormy climax"); with a chapter of falling action and dénouement following that one. So, two, possibly three more chapters after this one, and I swear they will write more easily than what I've encountered with this one.

But anyway, those reading, you've been so patient with me, so I'll not delay you further!

Humidity  
Chapter IV  
Forecast  
16 September 2011

At some point even Hiei had to give to the heat. It made it hard to fall asleep, even with his effort to drive himself into exhaustion—with Kurama's help.

It also made him logy. He perceived the space beside where he lied grow open and airy; a finger traced through his hair, down his scalp and over his ward, faintly tickling the Jagan beneath. But for all this, he did not actually stir when Kurama left, and much later, after he awoke to a high and haughty sun glaring in his face, he did not immediately register, or remember why his side felt naked.

Never mind that he was already naked. He rolled over and stared at the ceiling a while, sunning himself and thinking over the information Kurama shared with him last night. A meeting had been arranged, regarding a friend's marital affairs, that was what Kurama said. The Fox sure knew how to dress up his bait pretty, as Hiei was sure that uncertain, apologetic stance adopted for mentioning Toya had been just that, a rhetorical tool to prompt a reaction from him. Previously Kurama refused to help shut the door on Yukina and him; now it was as though Hiei were being pulled over the threshold, enticed by some strategic words.

Kurama _wished _he could lay so sure a lure. But the Jaganshi was not one to so easily play mind games with. Let that male ice apparition discuss Floating Isle lore—for that would be all _he _would know—with Yukina; it was no threat to Hiei.

Still, it snagged in his mind, an annoying, conscientious barb.

* * *

Hiei poured a bowl of cereal, which he set on the coffee table, and propped his feet up next to it as he turned on the T.V. He intended to eat out of it at some point, but first he flipped impassively through the channels. Not that he expected the movie he half-watched yesterday to run a third showing today; but Kurama had said something about the beginning segments, so he thought he'd see.

Of course, there was nothing to see, and all the local channels had to offer were a bunch of painted humans baring their teeth at the camera, and a map of the surrounding area, wavy and glowing lurid green and orange. With no remorse he killed the T.V. and turned his attention to his breakfast. It already tasted sickly-sweet warm, and he put it in the sink.

He had to eat, though. He begrudged his figure in the mirror and in the shower, in the scorn of Mukuro's knowing, condemning gaze; Yukina's—he should not think on her—subtle, so subtle curiosity; Kurama's ambiguous observation, almost predatory in that Hiei was sure the Fox waited for some accidental overexposure, on which to call him out.

—And not so long ago, he'd been the one telling Kurama to eat. And Kurama obliged him, if not wholeheartedly; and now Kurama was well, or well enough, and touring Gandhara. And if nothing else constructive came from Yomi's haphazard trips, at least Kurama felt a sense of fulfillment, rather than bereft.

And with the Fox gone, Hiei stood purposeless in this house, without even mundane chores to do because Kurama just _had _to be fastidious enough to tie up all loose ends before leaving town. He hadn't lost the old, old mentality, wherein every trip from home, did not necessarily entitle a trip back.

Involuntarily Hiei shuddered. Sometimes Kurama was _too _aware of his own mortality, as in the case of the memento mori spread over the face of their dwelling. Even their humans neighbors, who had not been blind to and had not forgotten the incident with the ambulance that winter, knew enough o regard the façade with an appropriately morbid fascination, emphasis on morbid.

More so appropriate, he thought ironically, given that it was the façade of the dwelling of two demons incognito. Even if that façade drooped ignobly now, in the heat and the plant manipulator's absence.

There was an idea. Hiei grabbed an apple off the counter, and bouncing it in one hand, walked outside, pacing the span of their modest yard and sizing up Kurama's little garden. It was already too hot for watering Kurama's plants for anything more than pretense, so he crouched down and picked at the odd blade of grass and such trying to choke out the roots of some of his friend's choice plants. These he plucked out easily enough.

Then he found himself staring down at his discard pile, forlorn with their roots exposed, and felt something heavy shift inside him. It was a highly unpleasant feeling, as though two rungs of his intestines were competing for space, sliding into and over each other in the process.

He grimaced, for the feeling as much as its cause. How warped was he, to feel sentimental over a few weeds?

Chewing pensively on a large chunk of apple, Hiei picked the rejects over, selected a weird-looking weed with little barbs on its stems, and threw it in a spare pot by the door. He sprinkled dirt around it until its roots were concealed. There was his act of compassion for the day, toward a world Kurama knew so much better.

Back in the winter, Mukuro blamed his funk during Kurama's hospitalization on "separation anxiety." Separation from _what_, he wasn't sure, because even with Kurama round he was having these "panic attacks." Over what—once more—, he wasn't sure.

He tore the last bite of flesh from its core, and looked around. Not a human in sight, off burrowing somewhere in the cool like invertebrates do. Smirking, he chucked the remains of the apple high in the air, zigzagged in-and-out-of the house in the time it took the core to peek in ascent, then wheeled out his sword and cut the core into even sixths on its fall back to the ground. The seeds landed around the, split in perfect halves.

Hiei made an exhalation that was half-sigh, half-snort. _Anxiety _and _panic_. Well at least his problems didn't affect his aim at all. As for himself, regarding himself, he called _phobia_: he just needed to get out. He sheathed his sword, lunged up a tree, and started running.

* * *

Inevitably, despite himself, Hiei wound up on the old woman's property. There was a steady, if not heavy, traffic of demonic visitors curious about Human World, and even transients committed to settling there. Kurama talked to some of them, and even occasionally there would be one that Hiei deemed had something of mild interest to say.

—And if, for instance, Kurama had arranged for someone from the Demon World to meet with someone in the Human World, here would probably be their terminal.

_That _ice demon wasn't around, but then for all Hiei knew, Toya might be a part of Yomi's trans-Gandharan tour. Meanwhile another ice apparition, the one he dreaded more, was present across the grounds, closer to the temple than Hiei in his shaggy perch among the pine trees was. Her husband-to-be accompanied her.

Hiei slumped against the rough bark his perch grew from, and wondered what he should do next. Not stay here, at the very least.

"Young man, are you lost?" someone called up to him.

An old voice, but not Genkai's; male, with a gravelly timbre Hiei had yet to hear any human accomplish. Irked that someone he didn't even know, and who didn't know him, had nonetheless happened upon him, he looked down disdainfully at an old demon on the ground, who looked up soberly. "I'm not a man," Hiei muttered curtly. Kuwabara was a man, Yusuke, even Kurama, for all the good and bad that came with it. "I'm a demon." Through and through, for all the good and bad that came with that. He jumped to the ground. "Who the hell are you?"

"Less particular than you," the old demon answered with a grimace. He was short, shorter than Hiei, whiskered, and sporting prominent, pointed ears. "But perhaps as disgruntled. I am Denbun, newly expatriated from Demon World. I understand that the old psychic woman—she is human, correct, so I may call her that?" Hiei met his ironic look with a dispassionate one. "Well, I understand that this is her temple, but that she is not here. I'm looking for whoever else may be in charge in her absence."

His voice was sour. Hiei had come to recognize a certain look, a certain tone of voice, especially in older demons. "Let me guess," he said. "You're one of those who can't tolerate the direction Enki and the others took, and now you're ironically cloistering yourself in _their _realm."

Denbun gave him a wry look. "I've heard your voice on the radio, I've seen your visage on the television. Weren't you one of the demons that fought with those humans in the Dark Tournament?"

Hiei twisted the corners of his mouth. "One of those 'humans' succeeded Raizen," he said, a little defensively.

"And my former lord beat him in the Tournament that followed," Denbun rejoined evenly. "I'm not such a cloistered old man that I don't keep up on my current events." Again with the sour face. "And now I seek accommodations from another of the human fighters. I'm not opposed to integration."

His tone and expression suggested otherwise. Hiei smirked. "What soured you on Yomi?"

To his gratification Denbun grimaced. "Times change and the world around us too, and every one of us must find a way to deal with those changes, or grow outdated and perish. It's practically a law of nature, and it applies to the great as well as the small. But if frustrates an oldster like me, who's lived out the latter years of my life in a stable kingdom, under a level-headed ruler, to see that same ruler lose his head, running around with that fox-consort of his. Hiei raised an eyebrow, but Denbun's lamentation continued: "Now I feel as though I have an idea how those pour fools in Tourin felt when their old king went on that stupid hunger strike…"

"'Fox-consort'?" Hiei demanded, unconcerned by Denbun's moral outrage.

Mournfully the demon nodded. "Yes, that damn white Fox. Of course near everyone has _those_ feelings now and then, but I'll tell you it's a shame seeing a once-stern leader fall into that twitterpated mess. No, I'll switch out for simpler settings, even if those're…" He shrugged off their surroundings. "Human."

'_That damn white Fox'… _

A fine line, that; fine as web, or a fishing line.

"Hn," Hiei coughed out. He felt full of air. Not _airy_, he hardly felt elevated: It was as though all the spaces and cracks of his body had taken a deep breath and forgotten to release; now it was trapped inside him, stagnant. His head felt like it was swimming.

"The ice apparition on the other side of the temple is something of an apprentice to the old psychic," he told the demon hollowly. "She's the one accompanied by the human buffoon. She may be able to provide you information." He swallowed. A sickly-sweet, thick-textured taste lingered in the back of his throat, like fermented phlegm. He felt sick.

"Yomi's a damn fool," he said. "If he's let amorous passions warp his senses like you say, and drive traditional denizens of Demon World into humanity's grip."

Or humanity's embrace, as Kurama might counterpoint, and no sooner had Hiei acknowledged that, than he had to face the subsequent thought: perhaps he was a damn fool too.

He bared his teeth, because nearly all his other faculties were immersed under several layers of things he wished he could unsnag himself from. "But if a little 'instability' in Gandhara makes you turn tail and flee to human safety, you deserve your fool king."

Denbun gave him a reproachful look, but Hiei needed to turn the barb outward, a distraction, lest anyone notice him quivering on that—probably oblivious, but he didn't feel like being compassionate, he was drowning—lure, the white Fox-consort…

That lure thickened and gained girth, and the lure became an anchor, and unable to detach himself, Hiei felt his mind and—even—his heart, sink with it.


	5. Break

**A/N: **So you may notice the incongruity between the date of this chapter's completion written below, and the date of publication wherein you fantastic folk get to see it. My sincerest apologies, but my old, mostly-loyal desktop's wireless adapter deigned no longer to pick up the network at my house, and I was without Internet access here for about a month and a half. That issue is now resolved, and any further delay in updates in the future will most probably be due to my own laziness.

But I haven't been lazy in this instance, rest assured! I have a few updates under my belt and awaiting their turn to ride the interwebz, including this story's next chapter after the one you see on the screen before you. So please, read, enjoy (or, if you must, don't)-and please, if you have anything at all to say, I would love to hear from you. I meanwhile will work to wrap this story up in a timelier manner than past, and if I get the feeling that people are indeed humoring me my hiatuses, the next finished chapter ought to be made viewable sometime next week.

Enjoy!

Humidity  
Chapter V  
Break  
31 October 2011

Hiei dreamt of a youth.

At first glance the youth appeared ridiculously vulnerable: soft, fragile, effete. One could approach him and not feel the fool for feeling superior and secure in power.

But of course, that was a front, a ploy.

Too late, when one had come too close, the youth fell away like a lantern fish's lure, illuminating the terrible presence behind that painfully sweet face.

And surely as the youth fell, so did Hiei fall for that lure. Now he knelt, helpless in that terrible presence. Thorn-studded vines enchained him head to limb to limb to limb to limb. Dark, spiraled blooms grimaced up at him, faces of insanity vivid enough to drive him mad too.

Perhaps he would have complained, had he not taken a deep breath and forgotten to exhale. Some time between forgetting and remembering, a thorn had snared in his throat.

And that terrible presence had dropped the lure, had laid the snare, and perhaps worse, now deigned to not even look at his catch, distant and indifferent as a deity that does not come when called.

The deity had his own company deigned suitable to fraternize with. Pan the Goat God presided nearby on a throne of white birch, the indifferent tormentor curled up to his side. Hiei turned his eyes away, only to discover that he was not the deities' only audience:

Scores of raving women, white and cold as _that damn white Fox_, writhed nearby. Helplessly Hiei gazed at his other tormentor, but with all façade of the youth wilted away, only the icy skeleton remained, and that was currently enrapt in tracing a finger below his chosen consort's shadowed eye. Hiei parted his lips to call a name, but his throat was thick with the thorn, so of course no name called, and no name came.

_Emiko._

And the ice-maenads cut into Hiei like a frigid wind. Impotently he bared his teeth as they sank in their claws and tore his flesh asunder. Beneath the bacchanal he stared up at his negligent, his frosty Bacchus. Bacchus stared coldly into space, chewing a vine of sinew. Something round like fruit glistened at the end, and Pan's face streamed red.

Bound in those insane vines, Hiei's vision ran red. Wearily, he stared out past the mad, the depraved, and the cannibal. He made his focal point a single glimmer of white in the distance—always, that elusive white.

Pan wept blood while Bacchus ate his eyes like grapes. Hiei—and who was he, if he was anyone?—stared out at that glimmer of white: an uninitiated maiden on the periphery. He opened his mouth…

_Yuki—_

No name came. The thorn twisted in his throat, and blood spattered on his lips.

* * *

Hiei's body took a deep breath, and forgot to let it out. Meanwhile the air inside the apartment grew stagnant and heavy, and his body ached from the weight of it.

That was how he felt at least, the most physically apt correspondent to what he felt otherwise: bored and listless in the Human World, watching t.v. and watering Kurama's plants, while the Fox was in Gandhara, land of the governor with _the white Fox consort_.

—And Hiei had seen Yomi _consort _with the white Fox in the past, and he wanted, needed that fool demon Denbun to be senile.

The clouds hung black and heavy over the temple when Hiei returned. He would find Denbun and demand his precise definition of that term, _consort_. Even if the context of their earlier conversation left Hiei little hope for a misunderstanding…

"Hiei?"

Damn if his toes didn't skid in their tracks the instant he was caught off guard—_off guard_—by that inquiry, _that voice_. Looking up the temple steps, Hiei struggled to unpurse his lips, and managed a simple utterance:

"Yu…"

_Utterance _indeed. Hiei coughed, or pretended to, and said louder, "Yukina. Is Kuwabara with you?" Now that he actually made himself aware of his surroundings, he didn't sense the psychic anywhere.

Yukina tilted her chin skyward. She wore a sleeveless shirt, pale pink in color. It matched the slight flush in her cheeks; like Kurama, she was very fair, and Koorime on top of that. Hiei wondered what those frozen women on the isle would think of the neckline of her shirt—they'd both deviated from their origins.

The cords of her throat—how many had Hiei cut in his lifetime?—showed taut against her flesh a moment as she lowered her gaze from the sky back to him. "It's supposed to storm," she said, "so he went back into town for some supplies. He wanted me to go with him, but I promised Genkai I would be here watching the temple. It gets more visitors these days, you know?"

Hiei nodded blankly. Sure, whatever. He felt stupefied, like the sockets of his skull had expanded to a grotesque scale and rate, threatening to cave in all his other features. He dare not express himself too facially for fear of it.

"Hiei." Yukina pronounced his name so urgently that he physically started as though struck, and blinked rapidly when he looked to her in answer. "Are you okay? Your face looks all gray and clammy."

He pinched his lips together, sucked in his cheeks until smooth little pockets of flesh ground between his teeth. That couldn't have helped his expression any. "My eyes hurt," he replied dismissively. "I've been watching too much television. It makes me sleep poorly." She continued to look at him thoughtfully and he shifted on his feet, uncomfortable with her gaze. "I was resting before I came here," he added lamely. "It wasn't very refreshing. Maybe my face hasn't fully woken yet."

She gave him a pitying look, which he loathed. "You're not recovered fully from your illness," she guessed, "are you?"

His illness—"illness"—which Mukuro scorned and Kurama guessed, but Yukina was the first outsider to that matter to take notice and show concern. But then his illness persisted now into the summer, since the marriage announcement, so perhaps Yukina was less an outsider to that matter, or rather, that new matter, that added matter, than previously. Either way, neither matter was a matter he wanted to discuss, so in answer he shrugged, concession and feigned indifference. And then:

"It's Kurama." Again she caught him off guard. "You miss him, don't you?"

_That _cut like a spoon, safe though the inquiry may have seemed. He took a breath—not a particularly deep one, because he was already bloated with stagnant air; not a particularly cleansing one, because he felt too damned toxic—and replied, pained, "I do. He's gone back and forth a lot lately." Yukina nodded sympathetically, looked for all intents like she thought she understood, though Hiei knew better.

And then she said, "He struggles a lot. I worry about him."

Hiei _thought _he'd known better. "Hn?" he exhaled involuntarily.

"And you worry about him too, Hiei," she said. "He goes back and forth, you mean that more than just going back and forth between the physical worlds. It's why he went to the hospital, isn't it?" Hiei stared at her. "I know the version that he told his parents, but I think that's because he needed an excuse that they could relate to, because they wouldn't be able to comprehend the literal reason. Even if he's feeling better now, it still must be hard on him, trying to coordinate his own life with his mother's people. So I worry about him."

It wasn't as though everyone was oblivious—the others had known before Hiei that something, even if they didn't know what, was amiss with Kurama, by virtue that they had been around and Hiei had not. Perhaps his absence, in addition to Kurama's personal feelings, had been its own virtue, opening something in the Fox that he felt compelled to suppress when he acted through the mundane. The point was, even Hiei with his three eyes had difficulty peering far beyond what Kurama himself volunteered, and so now, the perfection of hindsight aside, he could barely politely conceal gawking at Yukina, a little impressed at her perceptiveness.

However, he must have done a passable job, because Yukina took no notice of herself being scrutinized. Instead, she continued, "But I think he helps the apparitions here when he does that, even if it's hard for him. That someone like him lives the way he does now, in the Human World, and still maintains his ties, important ties to the Demon World, I think it makes everyone who wants a place in the overlap feel less like they're betraying themselves, like they don't have to abandon everything when they step forward to something new."

Hiei chewed the inside of his mouth. Someone like Kurama. Not that Kurama was the first or only demon to take up residence in the Human World, but he saw what Yukina meant. Kurama, even if he expatriated at first by necessity, regained the ability to return but declined. He was already maintaining an existence in the Human World of his own free will when Hiei became a reluctant denizen by means of punishment, and he maintained his foreign status, even finding ways back when relations between the two worlds were ambiguous, when they two and Yusuke were technically classified in the Demon World. Hiei had stayed in Demon World, even if he visited his former prison more frequently and more freely now. Yusuke straddled a position both similar to and different from Kurama's; even if their situations had been carbon copies, and they were not, Yusuke "won" by virtue that his was the inverted story, the one who rose from human to demon status; his story, barring a Raizen-like stunt, opened up only to even potentially higher endings; whereas Kurama willingly, even willfully maintained the status that most of their kind deemed inferior, or at least puzzling, and even now Hiei didn't know how it would finally end—he was at this point gun-shy about applying any potential endings of any kind to Kurama. But endings aside, naturally what Yukina was saying held weight, that Kurama in flux, while worrisome to Hiei and others close to him, would serve as some sort of role model to the more peaceable, adaptable demons, perhaps not the kingly visionaries but the quieter, queerer radicals.

Such as Yukina, with that in mind.

_BOOM!_

The sky lit up, as though to indicate by sight to anyone deafened by the preceding thunderclap, _Here comes the storm._

Instantly Yukina's gaze went skyward once more. "I hope Kazuma's still at the store," she murmured. "Or someplace with a roof."

Hiei swallowed, though he hated to; his insides felt thick, and he entertained a sick thought that perhaps he'd feel some relief from purging himself, as the clouds were about to themselves, but then Yukina really would have grounds to call out his condition.

"He'll hold up even if he's not," he conceded, to reassure her. He eyed the temple compound behind them. "You should take shelter too," he said, and then inclined his face toward the trees. Perhaps he would still intercept Denbun on that demon's way in from the rain.

"And you too, Hiei," Yukina said insistently, almost indignantly, as Hiei had swiveled his feet to match his head. "You won't make it home in time, it's already starting to sprinkle."

Hiei shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"Hiei!" Her tone had gone from almost indignant to almost stern. "You've been ill recently, you don't need to be out in the rain."

Was that all? He pulled his lips into a bemused smile for her benefit. "I thought you knew it's not that kind of illness; a little rain won't hurt me."

"Going to a house alone, then," she said, looking at him out of a face whose features were set in what almost qualified as a pout. "You were ill because Kurama was ill. You struggle because Kurama struggles. But Kurama's in the Demon World right now."

Damn it that she was perceptive. He spun around on his toes, back toward her. "You could have said you wanted company," he said faux-indifferently, following her to the Temple.

An awkward air awaited them inside, heavy and still. Or rather, not so much still, as brimming with a multitude of smaller, myriad and perhaps interconnecting energies, not of specific demons but random thoughts and emotions, frenzying alongside each other in an illusion of solidity; so not so much still, as asphyxiating. Hiei sat with his back against the wall, bracing himself against all the noisy silence that he perceived, or suspected, and boots discarded, idly flexed his toes, watching the cords of his feet while Yukina lit several oil lamps. One lamp was situated slightly higher than Yukina was tall, and the cords of her white neck stuck out again as she rose on tip toe to get to it.

Always that elusive white. And who was he, if he was anyone?

"Hiei," Yukina said, turning once more toward him. Dully he looked up in response. "Would you like some tea or anything? You still look clammy."

Clammy. He was a clam dashed on the prickling sea, smashed on the brittle land, and torn apart by mad flocks of birds while Bacchus ate Pan's eyes like grapes. He squeezed his own eyes shut, opened them again, and swallowed. Take a breath; no Kurama around to soothe him through panic.

"I'm hot," he finally answered, but then came the internal debate of whether or not he should discard his cloak for demonstration. An idea he quickly nixed. "Whatever I have, I might try to sweat it out," he decided. "I would like some tea." Something to swallow, other than his own bile, and the force that had brought him back here. It gnawed at him still, and finally he felt compelled to ask, on her heels as she left for water, "Have you seen Denbun?"

"Denbun?" She turned a pensive face his way. "Denbun who arrived today? Do you know him?"

Hiei didn't want to explain his earlier visit. "Barely," he answered her. "He's from Gandhara. I had a question about the affairs there." He kept his voice steady, bored even, despite the regrettable word choice.

"Kurama's affairs there?" Yukina asked. Hiei nodded cautiously, and she in turn nodded as though in understanding. "It's one of the reasons I worry about him."

Her tone was too ambiguous. "What do you mean?" Hiei murmured, wondering just how perceptive she was.

"Because he goes back and forth," she said, shrugging as though it were inevitable. And perhaps it was. "This time on my behalf, though…" Now she looked cautious, but continued: "Sometimes I hope that he comes back with nothing to show for it." Hiei stared at her blankly. "He told you he was talking to Yomi's shinobi for me, didn't he?"

Ah. "You asked help to find your way home."

"No." Yukina pursed her lips, shook her head a little. "Not home. My homeland, yes, but not my home for a while now. Especially now, because I don't want to go ho—back." Hiei tilted his head. "I don't want to go back," Yukina repeated. "I want them to know that I'm getting married. The Elders were kind to me growing up, but I know that if I do find my way back to tell them, I'll probably receive little more regard than our mother."

Hiei's guts contracted, a painful experience. Outside thunder rumbled.

"Mine and my brother's mother," Yukina continued. "Because I am making the choice that she did, but I won't try to hide it and I won't try to repent from it. They won't be pleased if they know, but they didn't give me their blessing when I left before, and I'm not looking for a blessing now."

Hiei listened, to the words on the surface surely, but with an ear for something not articulated but still audible, deep, deep down in the words, toothed and primordial. Beneath all that soft powdery substance was another, perhaps not harder but firmer substance, not ice but steel, not martial or defensive like a blade, but sturdy unto itself, a frame. Such was Yukina's construction, not easily demolished.

Still he wondered: "If their regard is worthless to you, why bother trying to relay the information to them to begin with?"

She shook her head again. "No, not them, not really. If I can, I want to find Rui. You remember Rui?"

His first thought was to his recent experience of that lapse that Kurama called a panic attack, and he burned with shame. "I remember you telling me about her," he replied. "I remember Kuwabara saying you want her to come to the wedding."

She nodded, smiling a little wistfully. "That would be nice, but I don't know. I don't think she would disapprove, but she wouldn't be able to act on that freely. If I found her and told her, and she did come, she probably wouldn't be able to return. She regrets what happened to my brother and our mother, but she still lives on the Floating Isle."

Rui had asked Hiei to kill her first, had begged him to deliver retribution. There were those who were unable to, or unable to believe themselves capable, to right the wrong, to neutralize or elevate something amiss, and they chose death, or living death, awaiting deliverance, any kind of deliverance, from an external power.

"But even if she couldn't bring herself to come, I would like her to know," Yukina concluded. "If I can't tell her that I found my brother at last, I can still show her that at least one of Hina's children left that life for something elevated. Or—" She made an exhalation that sounded like a laugh. "I mean, elevated like a better way of life. I guess it would be hard to elevate physically beyond a floating island, right?"

If Hiei were Kurama on a regular day, perhaps he would point out that sometimes in order to attain a better way, people had to gamble with a descent, and that there were at least several prominent tales to back that argument up. But Hiei was Hiei, on a relatively shitty day no less, and he said nothing.

The cords pressed shadows against the white of Yukina's neck as she visibly swallowed. "Even if I can't tell her for sure," she murmured, "I hope that if I found her, I could tell her that my brother found a better way, too—"

Yukina uttered the vowel sound of that last syllable, only to prolong and inflect it by suddenly sucking it back in. Hiei noted the change in intonation and looked his eyes up, narrowed his eyes in focus on her. The cords pressed shadows against the gray of Yukina's neck as she visibly swallowed. Her lips pursed and parted, as though to say something, but nothing came out before they pursed again. The lamps illuminated and accentuated a clammy perspiration on her skin.

Hiei's body let out the stagnant breath it had long held, as might someone who has had the wind knocked out of them, and he forced his locked nerves to soften and flex as he jumped up and braced his hands against Yukina's shoulders as her feet lost their bracing against the floor. "Yukina," he said, suppressing the panic in his voice so as not to elevate any in her.

Her head squirmed on her neck, and her face found its way peering around at his. "The air," she murmured. "The air's so full, it's hard to breathe—" And saying such her own breath hitched, and her face contorted as she fought control over a pained expression. "It makes me a little sick I guess. But I was supposed to get you some tea because you're sick, wasn't I? I'm sorry."

"No," Hiei said, and strengthened his hold on her as she tried to move, feet slipping against the smooth floor, almost as though she were trying to swim through the room. "I'm fine, Yukina, thank you. Do you need tea?"

"No," she murmured, pulling air in through her nose and pushing it out through her mouth. She almost grimaced. "I need fresh air."

Someone, Hiei himself, he supposed, since he had followed her into the temple, hadn't closed the door all the way, and the floor going out to the porch was already wet when Hiei kicked the door the rest of the way open and helped Yukina outside, keeping hold of her in case she fell. She straightened up and offered her face to the stormy breeze, taking in several deep, methodical breaths.

And startling Hiei as she flung them back out to the wind in a loud, harsh sob. "Are you okay?" he asked dumbly as she bowed toward the rain.

"I need…" she murmured.

Hiei's gut swam, swarmed with the Emiko, with the Dragon spewing smoke and fire and extinguishing everything in darkness, forcing those pastoral gods Pan and Bacchus to turn parasitic for sustenance, the lord of Gandhara and his white Fox-consort clawing the Dragon's wingtips as it flew circles deep, deep down inside him. He steeled himself against the increasing urge to retch, and managed to get out instead, "What do you need?"

She shuddered against him and he thought for a moment that she would retch instead, but then she stilled, and turned her wet face up toward the sky.

"I want my brother," she said, the wind all but snatching the request from Hiei's ears.

His forehead twitched painfully. The Jagan had joined the party, glaring over the scene while the Emiko emanated the dark flames that made the Dragon that destroyed everything. Those three attributes of Hiei, the Jaganshi, the Forbidden Child, the Dragon; taboo, darkness, that low thing.

Lightning crackled through the sky, warping the familiar temple scene with mosaics of brilliance and darkness, light and shadow.

Yet who among them that had lived thus far, had not at some point balanced upon or even broken some taboo, taken a plunge and risen up the higher for it? And perhaps that solemnity, fear, reverence, contemptuous awe, all that pathological ceremony that hovered over their experiences, was just so much hot air. Something twisted like a barb in Hiei's stomach, but he closed his eyes against it, drew cooling air deep into his chest, lengthened his spine.

"I am your brother, Yukina," Hiei exhaled, voice near to inaudible in the boom of thunder resounding over the temple.

The lightning made enhanced mirrors of Yukina's eyes when Hiei opened his and found her staring him in the face. Her lips moved, but her reply was lost in the twin thunderclap that followed.


	6. Clarity

**A/N: **This story is so near completion! I am envisioning two more chapters following this one, a fuller chapter entitled "Snow Eater" and a shorter epilogue-style chapter called "Fair Weather," and then this portion of the "Black Roses" storyline will be completed.

In the meantime, this chapter has, with the exception of a few little details, e.g. the scientific name of the plant Kurama sails, been completed since the date indicated below, a full month ago. I thank everyone so much for their patience and for continuing to read this story, which is so near full completion now. I shall be working to bring out the last installations of this story shortly; until then, read and enjoy!

Humidity  
Chapter VI  
Clarity  
23 November 2011

The storm's effects flooded, swelled and stagnated in the ditches and little passes of the area the next day. While the break in weather had cleared the air in most places, the odd traveler who happened upon the premises of the temple would find the humidity still hung heavy there.

These would have to be hard-pressed travelers, with a destination in mind, not some chance stragglers. For many reasons—the privacy and safety of the transient apparitions populating Genkai's sanctuary, as a surety—but most practical, a chance straggler would right then have lacked the ability to happen upon the temple by chance, as just then the base of the steps leading up to said temple, and all the ground level with or inclined below that base, was covered in water.

And so it was purpose that morning that navigated a lily pad over the incongruously still surface of what had been excessive, turbulent rain and flood, tip pointed like a boat's prow toward those steps. The leaf was sized much larger than any of its cohorts outside the Amazon, as intended by its captain: indeed, it had to be so large because it had to accommodate atop it two men, one the captain; both redheaded, both anticipating a desired apparition situated atop those steps.

Kurama was as placid as the water over the surface on which they were floating; but Kuwabara tensed his jaw, screwed up his eyes as though offended by the gold reflected and magnified off the waters, and fidgeted to a point that Kurama had to remind him that it was a leaf they floated on, not an actual raft, and that unlike the Gingerbread Man's fox, Kurama would not wait to be soaked before dispatching _his _ginger, should it come to that.

"I can't believe I left her for _batteries!_" Kuwabara moaned, digging his fingers in either unfortunate temple of hair, looking as though the stillness pained him. "It's not like we really needed batters. I mean, what man can't start a fire?"

"In the wet?" Kurama tried to placate him.

Kuwabara would have nothing of it. "Average man aside, I can see in the dark! It's not like she can't replace _me _with batteries, but there's nothing in the world that can replace Yukin—Uh." He stopped short his raving, and sobered as Kurama eyed him out of a suspiciously, and thus deliberately, blank face. "I can't believe I just said that out loud," he muttered, then contorted his face again and flung one arm wildly. "Kurama, do something to this thing, we're gonna float right on by, then I'll have to gamble with leeches!"

"No you won't," Kurama muttered, though with no realistic intent that Kuwabara would actually hear him. Methodically he knelt, and laid one palm flat over the center point of the leaf's veins; he held it there for several moments, then rose and backed cautiously away, motioning for Kuwabara to do the same on the opposite side.

His efforts produced a wind sail, a giant white flower whose petals reached high and caught a favorable breeze, and brought the two to the rising temple steps.

At the top of the steps stood two silhouettes, waiting on them. Long before their arrival, Kurama had picked up at least one of the demon's traces, and so had been unconcerned.

Kuwabara leapt over the first five or six steps, and already scrambled up the entirety as Kurama gained the first leisurely quarter, arms outstretched until they firmly clasped their target, or targets.

"Yukina!" he exclaimed, his hands enveloping hers to the point of hers no longer being visible. "I'm_ so_ sorry I left you to weather the storm alone. The road flooded before I could get back and _some people _held me down and wouldn't let me up until the storm had passed." Looking at her anxiously, he half-whispered, "Can you forgive me?"

The composure of Yukina's face first wavered, then thoroughly crinkled in mirth. "How could I not, under those circumstances, Kazuma? Besides, I wasn't alone. Hiei stood with me all through the night."

"Oh, yeah?" Kuwabara gave Hiei, who stood still with arms and features crossed, a cursory look-over, before saying, "thanks for looking out for Yukina, shrimp."

There might, _might _have been a note—not even a _mote_—of jealousy in his tone, which Hiei picked up nonetheless. The Jaganshi made a disgusted exhalation through the nose, then looked past those lovers, to his own breaching the top of the stair.

"'Wouldn't let him up'?" Hiei repeated Kuwabara's defense back to Kurama.

The Fox smiled, and raised one hand of dismissal. "I had no part. We can thank a group of convenience store customers taking shelter from the storm, and not wanting to be held liable for a madman running out and being struck by lightning or washed down road. The manager called Kuwabara's house, and Shizuru asked me while I was coming this way if I might rescue her 'idiot brother' before he was put under more serious arrest."

Hiei smirked, but his expression remained part-way skeptical. "How did you know I was here?" he asked. Kurama's attire was an embroidered tunic outfit; his "traveling clothes," the sort he often wore in the Demon World. Much as he'd have liked to, Hiei had not forgotten his initial reason for coming to the temple the night before. Against his will he flinched.

"When I came home and you weren't there, this seemed the likeliest place after," Kurama replied simply enough, a lilt of the eyebrows the only gesture that betrayed his taking notice.

Not that he was the only one. "Oh, Hiei." Yukina looked over inquiringly. "Are you sure you're okay? You just shivered like last night." She spoke innocently enough, but Kuwabara and even Kurama angled their faces curiously.

In turn Hiei angled his away self-consciously. "What cause would I have in all this heat?" he replied.

Out of the corner of his eyes she smiled her apologies. "If you're sure," was all she said, and with Kuwabara she turned and walked toward the temple.

Kurama watched them go, then looked at Hiei in a manner guarded, but no less solicitous. "Were you ill last night?"

Depending on how one termed '_ill_'…

"I told her," Hiei replied flatly.

Something crossed Kurama's face, too swift and evanescent to be caught. "And?" he pursued.

Since Hiei's stricken face had dried up with the rain, instead he turned a barren, washed out one on his friend, and monotonously pronounced, "She knew."

_There _was where that stricken look had gone, off of Hiei's face and onto Kurama's. "She knew," he repeated.

Not often was Kurama caught in the snare of unlikely news. The rare occasion of success never failed to amuse Hiei, and even now he smiled grimly as he related, "She at least suspected a relation between her brother and me for a while; she's known since before I first visited Mukuro." He gave Kurama a bemused look, challenging a rejoinder.

His friend smiled helplessly in turn. "We've underestimated Yukina," Kurama managed ponderously. "Unduly, surely. She's as courageous as anyone else in our group; how not as intuitive?" Hiei rolled his eyes.

Kurama wasn't done. "Don't consider your … being ill," he mused, "an impotent gesture, in light of her knowledge."

Now Hiei glowered: that was precisely what he'd been brooding over this morning.

"Sometimes our feelings persist," Kurama continued slowly, pacifically, "even in the face of diametrically opposed facts. Yukina's esteem of you, in this case." He smiled. "Or, for another, wasting yourself away on account of my welfare, when you in fact saved it."

_Exposed_: Hiei felt all his body's gravity plummet, and pool in his feet. "Or you," he returned hurriedly, "whom other transients evidently revere as their patron saint of fluidity, worrying yourself to death about how you should fit it."

Where Kurama's admonition had been blanketed in jest, Hiei's retort was spoken earnestly, imploringly, and Kurama blinked in surprise. Hiei broke eye contact and stared at his boots.

He still felt Kurama's eyes upon him. "Hiei, are you feeling al—?"

"Returned from the marital excursions, Lord Kurama?"

Hiei bristled and Kurama turned placidly as another demon, short and wet, emerged from the trees. "You don't have to call me that, Denbun," said the Fox mildly. "How are you settling in?"

Denbun sniffed, or perhaps he sneezed. "The old psychic is out of town, and last night I was rained on." He considered Hiei. "It seems you crawled out of the treetops at last, Jagan-master. I don't blame you; they're inadequate coverage in that kind of weather."

Looking between the redhead and the troll, Hiei managed, "You two know each other?"

Kurama nodded. "Denbun has resided in the House of Yomi for many years, or did. I'm sure you've seen his brother, Youda?" Hiei scrutinized their interlocutor again, and felt a new sense of clarity added to the recognition that had bothered him before.

For his part, Youda's brother looked no less enlightened, and just as dour as when Hiei saw him first. "I'm sure that my taking leave of his House hasn't winded Lord Yomi's moral any the worse," he said with an undertone of distaste. "Not with silky distractions to turn his attentions inward from more important matters."

While listening to this nearly accusative discontent, Kurama's lips were pressed pensively together, his brow politely furrowed; these features became slightly more pronounced, before they lifted, and he in turn pronounced, silkily, "And might Lord Shura also count as such an inward-turning distraction?" Denbun's eyes widened minutely as he blinked rapidly, then narrowed again resolutely, as he said nothing.

Smiling self-assuredly, Kurama pursued, "I think what ought to be kept in mind is that so long as a being, be that being a king or a former king or anything else, is still bound to such necessities as earth and air, hunger and fatigue, I do not see why we, also bound, should condemn them for acting on ties in relation to cohorts of their condition, and those instincts or feelings that accompany. To presume to deny them, we should first deny ourselves, which I think would require, first and foremost, our own isolation from as many 'distractions' as possible." Kurama raised an eyebrow as he considered their present surroundings. "By way of retreating to the wilderness, for example, or perhaps a temple."

By now Kurama had of course made his point, and only continued to elaborate on it now either for gratuity or burlesque; appropriately, the smirk and the grimace worn by Hiei and Denbun respectively, further set and caricaturized themselves, as the Fox concluded:

"As that appears to be the path that you have chosen, Denbun, I wholly understand and encourage you in your endeavors, speaking as an inherently rustic creature myself. I've seen such respites yield many beneficiary results to those who have undergone them in the past." Wryly: "Lord Yomi, for one."

And then, more seriously: "I would only caution you that such retreat of the person does not guarantee isolation of the self from external influence or criticism. As you are surely well-aware, even Lord Yomi and myself are in no danger of well-regard for infallibility." Shrugging this off, he demurred, "But then no one is an island."

The corners of Denbun's mouth creaked upward. Due to Kurama's rhetoric or the troll's own volition, Hiei wasn't sure; but there was something ironic in his tone as he conceded, "This may be so, Lord Kurama, coming from you and how well-_influenced _even you are," and walked away in direction of the temple, and dryness.

"I doubt he'll find a better sermon in there," Hiei remarked with his own dryness.

The gentleness left Kurama's smile, which more bore semblance to a self-indulgent smirk. "I am a Fox, Hiei. If by virtue of that I am inherently rustic, then consequently, I am also given over to the occasional, decadent proclivities. I have been styled '_King _of Thieves,' after all."

Hiei snorted, then quickly sobered, and not looking at Kurama, softly asked, "What marital excursions' did he speak of?"

"Pardon?"

Sometimes Kurama had a human's ears, though Hiei wondered if this was selective or no. Facing the other demon, Hiei cleared his throat, and said more loudly, "I met that demon yesterday. He said something about Yomi's twitterpation with his white Fox-consort." That said, he waited.

Kurama listened with no change in expression, and just as impassively he replied, "He would be speaking of Katsura, then."

The Jaganshi blinked. "Who?"

"Katsura," Kurama repeated. "Yomi's consort." Hiei looked at him blankly, and he appeared slightly uncomfortable. "Not unlike most people, demon or human, the governor of Gandhara is sometimes given over to desires that basic companionship cannot fulfill. Recently he approached me, and requested my services—"

Hiei winced, feeling his intestines twist into knots.

"—as a matchmaker," Kurama finished.

Again Hiei winced, this time in confusion. "A what?"

"A matchmaker." Kurama smiled and this time it was unadulterated amusement. "Yomi has a preferred type, which I am intimately connected with." Hiei raised an eyebrow. "I didn't just sprout out of the earth with my plants, Hiei; although _dens _are underground."

Both eyebrows, this time in enlightenment: "Other foxes."

Kurama nodded. "Those connections had gone dormant the past few decades, but when Yomi sought me out, I sought them out in turn. No one is an island, or a solitary hole in the ground, as it turns out."

The other demon liked that metaphor less. "And that led you to Katsura?"

"Who may be inherently rustic, but jumped at the opportunity to move in closer to more worldly affairs. I was glad for that," Kurama said, pursing his lips. "I felt less like I was calling on my kin in search of a mere commodity."

Hiei rolled his eyes: add "being a pimp" to the other imagined crimes piled on the scaffold of masochistic moral guilt; at least _he_ had feared disclosure to Yukina on genuine grounds of criminality.

"I think it will be a good match, though," the Fox said brightly.

He nodded slowly. "Between Yomi and Katsura."

"Yes."

"Yomi's white Fox-consort."

"Ye—." Kurama blinked, eyes illumined by something other than the emergent sun. He looked at Hiei, brows turned down slightly, and in a loaded tone, asked, "Who did you think Denbun referred to?"

Hiei stared at his feet, suddenly roasting in shame. "Hn—"

"Guys! Hey, guys!"

Perverse relief cooled Hiei as he looked up and saw Kuwabara sprinting toward them, rescuing him from having to answer.

"Kurama!" Kuwabara specified, panting. "Yukina…" He paused, sneezed.

"Lived through the night?" inquired the other redhead mildly. "Despite you almost being arrested for belligerence getting back to her?"

"Oh _hah_," Kuwabara said, running his thumb under his nose. "I was _going _to say, that Yukina just old me that word of the wedding and you scouting info on the Koorime got back to her brother." Eyes alight: "He came out to her. Uh—I mean, I don't mean came out to her, like gay or whatever, I don't even know who the guy is yet, but—I mean, he came to her and said, 'I'm your brother' or whatever, because he heard. You were right, Kurama."

Now Hiei tilted up his head, and his brows with them. "Right about what?"

Very slightly, almost but not quite imperceptibly, Kurama thinned his lips while Kuwabara plunged on, "Well Yukina's been kind of depressed about the prospects of none of her family coming for the wedding, and we figured that at least in her brother's case he probably already knew about her. I mean, one, she's an ice maiden mixing with general pop, and that's kind of inconspicuous in itself; but if that's not enough, then _two_, she uh, kind of keeps infamous company, you know?" He gestured round to Hiei and Kurama, while also pointing at himself. "_Us guys_, and she's been with us a lot of the way, she was bound to be noticed, not just by lowlifes." He frowned, then perked up and continued, "So if he already knew about Yukina, he probably just needed some prompting to come out, like bait. And Kurama over here"—again he gestured to the other redhead, who acknowledged it uncomfortably—"figured that if her brother caught word that people were asking around about _her _background, he might think we were closing in on him too, and crack under pressure."

Hiei nodded, face drawn up in an exaggerated _Ah_. "Kurama is a strategizing bastard," he affirmed, side-glancing said bastard, who resembled a worm wriggling on a hook.

Looking pointedly ahead, Kurama said, "I'm surprised you came racing out with this news before learning the brother's actual identity, Kuwabara."

"Nah, you guys should come hear too," Kuwabara replied insistently. He laughed. "Urameshi's gonna flip when he comes home and hears what he's missed, but he's been trying to make that martial arts tournament since junior high!—though it seems kinda silly now, considering we've all actually participated in way more extreme since then…" He shrugged. "But you've both helped out a lot, and you've known Yukina almost as long as I have, so."

Hiei coughed to disguise a snort, and before Kurama could say anything in response, he jumped in: "That's nonsense. She's your bride, this should be a moment between you two. We'll wait out here."

"Uh…" Kuwabara shrugged. "If you guys are sure."

"Very," Hiei insisted dryly. "We've done our part, I wouldn't think of putting myself further out than I already am." This said, he watched almost sadistically as Kuwabara returned to the temple, estimating he had all of two minutes to reap the response, and that was guessing generously.

Eyes forward on the temple, he said no less dryly, "Did you ever even bother with dispatching Toya, or was that a ruse?"

Out of the corner of his eye Kurama finally pinked, and answered, "I planned to, if the announcement to didn't flush out anything in a timely manner."

Hiei smirked self-deprecatingly. "You deceptive smartass."

"Are _you _sermonizing me now, Hiei?" Kurama inquired banteringly.

"Maybe I _should _strive better to be a positive role model," Hiei mused. "I am Yukina's brother now."

"And she thinks no less of you now that you know she knows." Looking a little smug, Kurama said, "I told you."

He showed his friend his appreciation via a silent snarl. "Don't you know it all?" he asked sarcastically, and then looked forward again. The black fabric across his chest rose visibly as he took a breath, and then tugged down back into place as he anchored a hand in either pocket.

"Come on," he invited Kurama over his shoulder, already walking. "I want to see the look on _his_ face when he knows too."

* * *

The noon hour found the overgrown Nymphaeaceae once more floating two figures down the floodway. Its original captain resumed encouraging its course, this time more actively, because sometimes going back is harder to do than was the initial meander that took one out with it. For all that though, Kurama gazed stoically over the drowned road, and soon they would reach a point where each could rest on their own two feet again.

Hiei of course could have inconspicuously returned to the city much faster on his own, as Kurama had pointed out, saying he wouldn't take offense. But Hiei had declined; or rather, he had wordlessly boarded the amphibious leaf, and sat cross-legged, leaning back into several of the sail's petals and contemplating the vein-work of the deck as they drifted along, saying nothing for a while.

The look on Kuwabara's face when Yukina named her brother had been the cream of that goof's comical faces by far, and Yusukewould sorely regret missing it when he returned; it was one that the aforementioned brother would certainly relish in memory for some time to come. Of course after a prolonged recovery period, that look gave way to one of suspicion and admonition: If Hiei was the long not-so-lost brother, why hadn't he said anything before, especially with Yukina searching right there in front of him?

In a bored voice Hiei had given his reasons, already refuted by Kurama scores times over, and finally refuted forever by the girl ever at question. From Kuwabara though he received no refutation, which he had taken for granted and which was just as well—he didn't need too many people in one setting trying to drill into him what a _good_ person he was, and counted on Kuwabara at least to side with him.

—But then that idiot had gone and betrayed him as well, standing there gawking at him in genuine amazement, and finally getting out, "I thought you didn't care what people thought of you?"

Hiei stiffened, then rolled his eyes, cocked his head, shrugged one shoulder, and retorted, "I don't care about _people_."

Which of course condemned him further, because Kuwabara then looked curiously from Kurama to Yukina, and with a knowing look back to Hiei, who at that moment might have melted Kuwabara's face if given half the chance and no repercussion, it was so smug. "Yeah Hiei," the psychic humored. "You keep mouthing those words for all those tough demons in Makai to hear; I'll keep an eye on you in Human World when they're all not looking, okay?"

And now Hiei sat brooding over his spot of leaf, thinking which chewed worse on his ego: the self-portrait of him as the criminal unworthy of being loved, or the sentimentalist ripe for jest.

Suddenly:

"I love you," Kurama murmured. Hiei glanced up, over. Kurama was still looking ahead, but something other than the sun warmed his contemplative face. "I don't know when I started to, but I love you. I love your loyalty, your intuition that things are amiss, and your wisdom to contain your solicitations for when they are especially necessary." His lips tugged upward. "I love your attempts to shroud your vulnerabilities, and your substance that lets it fall loose now and then. Also—"

Here now he looked Hiei full in the face, the smile full on his own. "I love that I can say I love you, for being the one person to genuinely make me sick."

Hiei stared at him from under deadpan brows, which crinkled as his face loosened into something too suppressed for a full-on smile, but warmer than a smirk. "Hn," he said, and looked at the "floor."

"But Hiei," Kurama continued.

Hiei looked up again, in time to see a fair set of knuckles come sailing his way, just above eye level. Above level with his pair of eyes, at least. He wheezed in shock, and dumbstruck stared vacantly first ahead then up as he fell over the edge of the leaf with a matter-of-fact _splash_. The world wavered and turned murky as he floated below the surface a moment, cloak billowing around him. And then he blinked, kicked his feet indignantly, broke the surface sputtering, and turned his head toward the leaf, stared in bewildered expectation at Kurama.

Who stared back self-assured, and jovially called out, "Yoko Kurama is a _silver _Fox, Hiei, not white."

Hiei spat water out his mouth, which then contorted into a grimace, but he dared not say anything in retort, and only muttered, "I deserve it," as he swam back to the leaf.

"It's not entirely unjust," Kurama conceded, extending one hand toward the water. Hiei took it, and didn't mind that he sloshed water on the leaf and its captain as he was pulled back aboard.

"I wasn't right in the head," he said apologetically, dismissively, and shrugged out of his sodden cloak. It made a squishy sound as it pooled around his feet, and he stepped to one side of it, then knelt, leaning back on his heels, hoping to expose himself as much as possible, that he might dry at least a little in the sun.

He caught Kurama looking at him—and nonchalantly looking away—, and smirked. "Enjoy it while you can," he goaded the Fox, pushing one giant lily petal back in invitation. "My sister's wedding is coming up, and I've been in the Human World too long."

"Oh?" Kurama gave him a curious look. "Back to Alaric?"

The Jaganshi rolled his eyes at the intentionally, barely concealed tone of Kurama's voice. "No," he replied. "Mukuro put me on leave, so to speak, until I reconciled a few personal issues. And somehow she'll know if I return with that task only halfway met, not just pertaining to you." Kurama angled his head in bemusement. "And I'm not skipping out on the wedding," Hiei continued, "since you were wondering." Kurama confirmed this with an unapologetically guilty smile. "I actually very much intend on being present, which is also why I intend on leaving sooner rather than later. It's my deadline."

"Deadline?" Kurama repeated, tone conveying that he half-comprehended what Hiei was talking about, and was fishing for the other half.

"I told her I would," Hiei strung him along. Kurama gave him a mock-exasperated look, and Hiei smirked as he kicked his cloak in the redhead's general direction. "You may talk big," he jeered. "But a picture's worth a thousand words, isn't that what your humans say?"

"Yes, and what picture do you refer to?" asked Kurama as he picked a wet, hollow black sleeve off the tongue of his shoe, and joined Hiei beneath the petals.

Hiei smirked superiorly. "The one under here," he said, pointing to his headband. "I found my way back to that isle once; it should be even simpler the second time."

Simpler than he would appear on arrival at least, especially with the company that insisted on going with him.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm curious to know, if anyone would so opine, the effect on the chapter inferred by my decision to omit the actual revelatory scenes pertaining to Hiei's actual relation to Yukina. Or in the case of him telling her, I guess I should say the elaboration scene, since the past chapter closed with his actual telling her. I almost included a flashback in this chapter following up on that scene, but I felt that drawing it out would be just that—drawing it out, with about as much accomplished after as beating over a dead horse. I mean, last chapter wound up to me having this almost baroque feel the way I wound up writing some of the scenes, particularly the last one, and I liked the effect but I felt if I carried it over to this chapter is would become too gratuitously graphic. Was I wise to summarize rather than give a detail-by-detail account? Thoughts?

Anyway, the next chapter I anticipate shall be called "Snow Eater," returning to the overall weather motif of this story; and as that and the parting lines of this chapter might indicate, our children of scandal are taking a brief trip home. Hopefully the coincidence of the icy weather coming up and the current winter weather around Yours Truly will further motivate me to bring that to you all the sooner. In the meantime, I wish you all a happy holiday, whichever ones you and yours celebrate; thanks for reading! – 12/23/11


	7. Snow Eater

**A/N: **Took a couple of tries, flirting both with gender topics and dogmatic attitudes, and debating how to and not to aggrandize both in this chapter, but here we have it!

Humidity  
Chapter VII  
Snow Eater  
25 January 2012

Neither would stand for the other venturing to the island alone; yet both made the case for why the other needn't accompany them. Hiei argued that if he found the Floating Isle he may as well deliver the announcement, and possible invitation, while he was at it, and whether or not Rhui accepted, they could be done with it. Yukina countered with the suggestion that once his Jagan had pinpointed the location, there was no need for him to actually set foot there, if he didn't want to.

This consideration made him snort, because if, in his inward obtuseness, he had exaggerated her naiveté, this at least indicated that there was something to exaggerate nonetheless. "I don't care what those dogmatic icicles think of me," he told her, in a voice still resolute, for all the weariness it had accumulated after the night's exhaustive, at times even paralytic, discourse. "The last time I was there, they cringed and I pitied them. If their view of me changes because they realize who I am, I'll unsettle them as the bogeyman they've been taught to fear, or as a contradiction to that superstition, and I'll still pity them. However they regard me, I'm still me when I leave the ice-maenads behind."

Yukina furrowed her brow. "'Maenads'?"

For all his vocal conviction, his insides mimicked their previous tightness, a probable factor of those nightmares, or hallucinations, that he had just accidentally alluded her to. Setting his mouth in a line too tight for genuine dismissal, he shrugged ineffectively, and said in badly feigned nonchalance, because the night was long and he was tired, "I've been ill. Deluded. Over my … lover," he pronounced, wincing against those echoed contractions of feeling, churned up by that referral to Kurama, whose uncertainty was then to him still unresolved. Too many ambiguous prefixes.

"And," he pushed on, "over my sister."

_That_, at least, he managed to expel without hesitation, though after the last syllable left his mouth, he still felt the reverberations of that fresh confession—or admission, as it turned out, after hearing _her _confession—tart on his tongue.

Despite each twin's reservation about the other's journey to the island, they did band together, and with a unified voice, thundered a loud and resolute _**NO **_to both Kuwabara's and Kurama's petitions.

Kuwabara's was idealistic. "But I could show them that their ideas about this world and the men in it are wrong!" he argued, tipping his teacup at a dangerous angle in his agitation. Calmly Yukina slid a few napkins under where his hand hovered—for the sake of the Kuwabara family's tabletop—, while he continued to vent: "Geez, would I want to _marry _you and build a _life _with you if I were really just some, some…"

"Rapacious embodiment of patriarchal oppression," offered Kurama from across the table.

"_Yeah!_" Kuwabara affirmed, then made a face. "That."

Hiei, who until then had been drinking his tea, and when done with that, tactilely pondered the indentions in his cup's form where previously other fingers had molded it from clay, finally set it down; and rolling his eyes, broke his silence: "And surely you, the great ningen hope, with all your talk of honor and being a man, will single-handedly wipe clean generations of engrained, paranoid…"

"Nationalized battered wife syndrome," Kurama concluded when he faltered.

He looked at the Fox, who stoically gazed into his own cup. "Something like that."

"Uh." Kuwabara glanced toward a room down the hall, though its usual inhabitant wasn't home. "Should I bring _my _sister, to show I'm for real?"

Yukina laughed, but shook her head. "It's not that simple, Kazuma. As soon as they heard how we met, they would treat it as a story that reinforces their point of view."

"But—"

"Kuwabara," Kurama interjected thoughtfully, "consider that the complaints that these women brought to their isle and insulated themselves with, aren't wholly inane. You might tell their matrons that you will marry Yukina, and in their eyes that marriage may be nothing more than you asserting your rights over her as your property—and whatever your true feelings and intentions," he added, calmly but swiftly—as Kuwabara's face began to contort with indignation—"there would be nothing you could do to demonstrate those. Meanwhile, they will think what they want to think, and it will probably be the worst."

Kuwabara closed his mouth, and said nothing more for his case, but the unnatural setting of his jaw spoke his frustration loud and clear.

Skeptically Hiei looked at Kurama. "And what can you demonstrate?"

Kurama shook his head. "I'll save the pedagogy for consorting with the former human eaters."

_Consorting._ Hiei pursed his lips at the provocative phrasing, _intentionally _chosen, if the oh so slight, wicked curve of Kurama's mouth was any indicator.

"My concerns are more practical," the Fox continued. "Namely, how might these women react when a fallen sister's deviant children come only, in their eyes, to flaunt apostasy in their faces? You two would be alone, and outnumbered."

Idly Hiei flexed the fingers of his right hand, then the hand itself, then his arm. The skeptical look persevered. "Do you really think," he challenged, "that I can't hold my own against some glacier of women, isolated and unmissed?"

Evenly Kurama replied, "Would you, though?"

Hiei narrowed his eyes, and flatly retorted, "Without a second thought, if need be."

During their discussion Yukina's features had sunk into an increasingly uncomfortable expression, and now she tugged her lips, shook her head, and said, "No, they're not like that. They're strict, but they're not vindictive—or, even if they are, it's not because they _are_…" She pursed her mouth into something resembling a collapsed grimace. "They're scared."

"True," Kurama conceded. "But even if you've strayed, you're still an ice maiden. They retained your mother while expelling your brother. If they took violent offense, perhaps they would preserve you out of hopes that you might repent, or out of punishment if you did not. But if for whatever reason Hiei missed the opportunity to defend himself…"

While Hiei could have expressed offense, he instead chortled, and guessed, "And if, for whatever reason, we didn't rejoin the general demon population in a timely enough manner—Gandhara might make the isle into an unwilling satellite? Or perhaps the surrounding skies suddenly, strategically become infested with toxic floating fungus pods—or something like that?"

Neutrally Kurama rejoined, "Perhaps, something like that."

Yukina and Kuwabara both gave him concerned, puzzled looks, as though deliberating whether or not his threats were real.

Unperturbed, Hiei smirked, and said dismissively, "His 'practical concerns' are just as unrealistic as Kuwabara's idealistic ones." To Kurama: "But if _you're _going to toss and turn until we reemerge, wait for me in Gandhara, and I'll come pay my respects to those newlyweds when we're done."

While Kurama returned his smirk, distorted into the form of conditional acquiescence, Kuwabara furrowed his brow in confusion. "Uh, what newlyweds?"

"An old friend and a distant relation," the other redhead answered. Eyeing Hiei, he added, "And technically speaking, that terminology could be misleading; no actual wedding took place."

"Neither will ours," Yukina jumped in, looking at Kuwabara. "Not if someone doesn't stay to plan it. Unless you want to turn control of everything over to Shizuru…"

At that, Kuwabara made a strained sound in the back of his throat, and his face made a corresponding expression. "She _would _like that. She's been treating the whole thing like it's _her _getting to give _me _away to Yukina or something, which doesn't even make sense because she's not getting rid of either of us until we find a place to move out of here _to!_" He sloped his eyebrows into the curve of his palm; and across the table, Hiei, out of consideration for Yukina, fought the curve of a threatening sneer.

That is, until Kuwabara, evidently recovered swiftly, lifted his face from his hand and said to Kurama, "Oh by the way, would it be possible to get your landlord's number?"

The sneer grew flaccid of its own accord. Yukina's topic of deferment wound up working so well that even Hiei, who would still be going to seek the isle, thought less on the more daunting prospects of the upcoming expedition, than he did on what to him was the more gut-freezing possibility of his future brother-in-law (gut-freezing in itself, but an inevitability he had to digest) also becoming his neighbor.

* * *

And so the children of Hina returned to the Floating Isle of the Koorime, unaccompanied as per their desires, unaided save for one thing Kurama pressed on them. Hiei accepted it, though he doubted its necessity. It was intended to "ensure a smoother departure," or so Kurama said. "Smooth": a texture that Hiei found incongruous with the entire nature of this trip.

In his opinion, the closest this could come to "smooth" would be _slippery_—as indeed the first woman to discern the two prodigal forms apart from the howling gusts of snow that blew every which way, lost her footing, and sprawled in a drift before them.

Perhaps it was the time taken to recover her stance, coincidental with the time and space closed as they approached; or a delayed reaction on her part, that took her so long to look from one twin to the other, and then to focus on Hiei; a realizing what _he _was—and perhaps even _who _he was, much as her superiors might have tried to degrade him to the status of _thing_—uttered a surprised, scandalized yelp that almost ran away on the wind.

Yukina pushed tangled forelocks out of her face, and asked the woman, "Are you hurt?"

Straightening up, she shook her head, and though she still stared at Hiei, she addressed Yukina: "You're Hina's daughter."

"I am." Yukina inclined her head towards Hiei. "This is my brother."

For his part, Hiei was content to let Yukina speak for him, and let his features rest naturally on his face, as menacing or nonmenacing as that may have appeared to the woman. Who started again, and whose complexion momentarily took on a translucent quality that Hiei supposed was a phenomenon attributable to when the fairest of the fair blanch; and immediately after, took on a gray hue that he doubted was ever meant to be natural.

The only outward sign he betrayed in recognition of her reaction to him, was a slight flare of his nostrils, numbed by this point to tactile sensations, but still acute to the suddenly new presence of a sharp, ammoniac smell. He was not surprised, as he had encountered that involuntary greeting too when he had returned the last time. Neither did he fault her for it—her in particular, for though he did not know _who _she was, he _did _know her as one of those women who held back Hina on the cliff. That knowledge, and her reaction, affirmed in his mind that Yes, she knew exactly who _he _was.

Though he maintained his features numb as the cold, somewhere in Hiei's mind, at least a few neurons tingled in pleasure—call it perverse or vindicated—as he broke his silence, and said, "We're looking for Rhui."

She might have swooned, but didn't. Instead, she turned terrified eyes off of Hiei, and set outraged ones on Yukina. "It wasn't enough that you left to look for him, you had to bring him back to destroy us all? Yukina, why?"

Whatever Yukina might have felt from that accusation, her features remained placid, a display of the same exercise performed by Hiei, who countered: "_I _brought _her _here, and _we're _looking for Rhui."

She did swoon then, one knee buckling as she staggered backward. She stayed where she dropped this time, and while she didn't move to aid them as they moved forward, for fear or loathing or both, neither did she move to stop them, for perhaps those same reasons.

Icicled dwellings came into view, though they saw no people (_women_, Hiei mentally specified; women and girls) yet. As they walked, he glanced over at Yukina.

Who said calmly, with her gaze kept ahead, "I was prepared for that sort of greeting. Even if I'd come alone, I was prepared for that in the village, once I told them why I came."

Hiei nodded, and looked forward again. "Then I'll let you do the talking." They were close enough now that he could easily see the silhouettes of apparitions, if not yet their features.

Once their features were distinguishable, they were all variations of those expressed by the woman from before: the terror and betrayal of damsels damned, and he their dragon. He had encountered this all before, and had expected no less this time. The only incongruity this time around, was the added puzzle of Yukina, whose place at least she seemed sure of, as no one else was, Hiei included.

And when finally they encountered two visages—the two that Hiei had expected—that treated his appearance with neither horror nor surprise, but a knowing resignation, it was to _her _that they diverted that reaction they withheld from him. Their cause, Yukina's return, was shared, and easily discernable; their individual sentiments behind it, less so.

Word of their coming must have preceded them, even if by not much. Hiei sincerely doubted that they would otherwise find the woman who led the condemnation of their mother's actions, and the woman she had forced into the role of executor, gathered side by side in a place of prominence in the village square; obviously they were set up to receive the residue of that punishment enacted already two decades past. Rhui eyed both twins with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety, while the Koorime elder, no less wrinkled than when Hiei had seen her last, looked at both of them, Hiei particularly, as though they were that elemental mix on the edge of a trail, the product of snow melting but not quite thoroughly mixing into the earth, that no one wanted to step or slip into.

Appropriately, the elder by-stepped Hiei in her vision, and focused on Yukina. "I see that you've fulfilled your quest to find the abomination," she said gravely. "Though you've done so without fortune or our blessings."

"I was fortunate to find him, Elder," Yukina quietly dissented.

The crone pursed her lips. "Your time in the wilderness did not strip you of your innocence," she opined. "That is a blessing and a curse, and it is the curse of the Emiko that allowed you to find him, so that you could lead him back here to destroy us. That may not have been your intention, but it is the nature of the beast."

While the implied "beast" stood stoically at her side, Yukina furrowed her brow, shook her head, and said, "It was not in his nature to destroy me, though he found me and knew me before I knew him."

Hiei felt the eyes of an entire village on them, the impure elements, and felt that the thick calm that surrounded them, and to this point led the dialogue between maiden and crone, was as the eye of the storm. He looked from them to the woman who, for Yukina at least, had been a stand-in mother. Rhui met his gaze, and in that moment both exchanged an anticipation of the coming turbulence.

As expected: "He has _deceived _you," the old woman insisted, her voice growing gravelly as it rose in volume. "You are the instrument of his revenge; he needed you to show him the way back so that he can annihilate this place, and all of us in it!"

And though he had expected it, Hiei was startled out of his composure nonetheless, when Yukina in turn broke _hers_, and raised her voice:

"_He _brought _me _back because _I _didn't know the way!" she mimicked his retort to the woman on the path previously. "And _he _is Hiei, and if he ever deceived me, it was by keeping his relation to me a secret, for fear of me catching the taint that _you _forced on him." She pressed her lips into a thin line, for a moment resembling her much older counterpart, as regards obstinacy at least, and then parted them, concluding: "The only reason he came back now is because I did, and neither of us plan to stay. I am going to marry a human."

This exchange had been the welling irritant, and now the eye of the storm blinked. All around them Hiei heard scandalized exhalations, aimed at them like a thousand little shards of ice. The frozen women of the village now stared, not at Hiei, but at his companion that they had—_had—_counted as one of their own. Rhui also changed her focus, the confusion on her face now overcast by the anxiety.

And the elder, for her part, looked aggreived, and closed her eyes as though exhausted.

"Hina has cursed us two-fold," she pronounced. "If you two do not return to deliver a clean kill, then you come to torture us, and make us wish for death."

Silence hung over them, heavier than a fog, and Hiei felt an inner tension akin to those previous attacks, that had started when he first learned of his sister's intentions, and ended—ostensibly—when he had learned of his sister's knowledge _as _his sister. His sister, who had known torture more literal than the old crone's pathetic rhetoric; and who now stood under fire, partly on his account. He took a deep breath, which was far less liberating in conjunction with bracing one's system against the antiseptic cold…

And let it out prematurely, when not he, but Rhui, broke the silence:

"Elder," she spoke hesitantly. "I know you're sure that Hina's son means us all ill, but you must know that he returned to us once before, and harmed no one." She stared at Hiei hard, and continued cautiously: "I believe he actually left with the intention of finding his sister and securing her from harm. If the stories of the other Koorime sons are true, then I think that _Hiei_ may be an exception."

Her face took on a pained expression, especially at the pronouncement of his name. Whether from some guilty feeling of being beholden to him, or the stress that accompanied breaking face with a Koorime of higher order, Hiei didn't know. Thoughtfully he considered her conflicted visage, and then said, "She wanted to invite you to the wedding."

He could hear Yukina's thick swallow beside him, and then the strained affirmative, "It's true, Rhui. It's why I came here."

While Rhui looked at her, that conflicted expression on her face further enunciated for its silence, the elder made a disgruntled noise. "_Nonsense!_" she croaked. "Rhui, Hina's daughter has strayed, not as her mother did, but worse. She would try to sanctify her waywardness in the barbarous institutions of the outside world, and snare you in it. Do not be pulled in as mother and daughter have been!"

Hiei listened, watching the maiden condemned, and the one admonished. Both maintained individual expressions, but also a reluctance toward motion, or emotion. Frozen women, numbed by the censure of that chilly abbess, all for contact with the son.

Who watched, and remembered, and suddenly stirred the stillness with a soft "Heh"; followed by the vaguely amused murmur, "Fuck you, Kurosawa."

Promptly the crone's attention snapped to him. "_What?_"

Hiei shook his head as though from a dream, and for the first time, looked her full in the face, and raised his voice. "What you don't know could fill an entire world. If you have gone into it, you haven't thawed your mind to anything you encountered. How pitiable." Glancing aside at Yukina, he murmured, "Do what you like, but I feel we're treading circles to nowhere now."

Blinking, she turned her head, and returned his gaze, and nodded. "Yes, I think it's time to go, too." And each turning inward before stepping out and around, the children of Hina began their procession away from their mother's people, in a matter-of-factly defiant volte-face.

"… Wait."

Which froze in its tracks, as each sibling stopped short, having heard that minute, that soft but so substantial imploration, and turned their eyes where their ears had been.

Deliberately not looking at the elder, or any of her "sisters" around her, but straight ahead at them, Rhui took her first steps forward. And Yukina smiled, while Hiei maintained a neutral countenance, as Rhui's steps never staggered, and never slowed, but carried her steadily onward, to the point that once they had resumed their trek out of hostile territory, she had already fallen in step with them by the village's edge.

"Don't listen to them, Yukina," Rhui murmured. Though every second they put more distance between themselves and the women who welcomed none of them, they could still hear shards of icy hisses aimed their way; an anthem of anathema, and they the ones damned.

"I stopped listening to them a while ago," Yukina replied evenly. There wasn't a note of either muster or suppression in her tone; her indifference to the condemnation was genuine and free, and Hiei was glad to hear, glad to know. So much so…

"Uh—Hiei?" Yukina said, an uncertainty tingeing her voice where it hadn't a moment before. No cause for concern, however, at least not for him, as he knew it came from seeing him, suddenly grinning in the snow and cold.

"Heh." He shook his head to dissipate her concerns, and continued walking. They weren't far from their method of departure: a large plant, with leaves that when unfurled might act as gliders; that held up resilient to these inhospitable winds, maintained with thanks to the energy of the demon who had supplied it. Or, more aptly, had forced it onto Hiei, so insistent that he would need it, so confident that he would encounter the dilemma of leaving the Isle with one more woman than he had gone with, and wanting to ensure that the descent would be no more precarious than it had to. And Hiei had chosen to give in, and accept the supplies he knew he'd have to take either way, anyway.

And aware of the curious gaze—no, gazes—directed into his back now, he chose to elaborate:

"Kurama told me a story, not long ago. Once there was a Snow Queen…"

* * *

**A/N:** I wasn't sure whether I should present the confrontation between Hiei and Yukina and the Koorime in this story at all, and actually right up to posting the previous chapter, thought I'd just skip ahead to the wedding, and summarize the events that take place in this chapter. However, since I summarized the aftermath of Hiei's coming out to Yukina, I felt I couldn't skim over this too, otherwise that would just be me being lazy, haha.

Deciding to actually narrate instead of referring back to this chapter did, of course, present the issues of how to present it. As it turned out, it was presenting everyone _aside from_ the twins, but especially Rhui (and more especially, not overdramatizing her), that required the most time and thought. This chapter actually might have been done and posted three weeks ago, but for that time spent deliberating on the last eight or nine paragraphs in particular.

_So_, let me know if I did a good job, if you're so inclined! Or if I did a bad job and it absolutely sucked—whatever. There's a last chapter/epilogue still in store that I believe will be much easier to write than the second scene of this chapter was, so it'll be along soon!


	8. Fair Weather

**A/N: **In slightly belated honor of Kyo Hana's birthday (it was last week), I've finally stopped dragging my ass, sat down and thought a while, and finished writing the conclusion of this chapter—and thus the conclusion of the story.

_Finally! _–they all cry, if _they_ are patient enough to still be reading. And if so, let me say this, though I can't say it enough, _THANK YOU_. There is a sort of pleasure I get writing a more psychological piece such as this or "Black Roses" that is not identically derived when I am working on a more plotline-centric story like some of my others, and I like to know that people read and like these ones too. Ideally, if my ideas tease out as I hope, and time and work ethic willing, there will be two more installments in this story cluster; for now, however, I'm simply happy to have achieved an ending for this one that I hope it deserves, and that I hope will be satisfying for everyone who's waited this long for it. Let me know how my execution went, if you're so inclined.

Now, since I've put it off long enough!

Humidity  
Chapter VIII  
Fair Weather  
15 March 2012

The sun was going down. Hiei pursed his lips.

"Something the matter?" Kurama asked him.

"There is a buzzing in my ear," he complained under his breath.

"You should not insult Kuwabara's speech," murmured the Fox playfully.

He bared his teeth, a dental groan. "This is the eighth time I've heard it today; I liked the condensed version he gave when he announced this nonsense better. At any rate, I think your hearing's going, because _this _is what I meant." He reached up, and between forefinger and thumb, crushed the high-pitched culprit. Mosquitoes were a summertime nuisance as it was, but with the recent storms their numbers had proliferated.

"Hey." Hiei narrowed his eyes as a finger flicked against his cheekbone. "Way to listen, guys," Yusuke chided with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Not that they noticed, look at them!"

Hiei clenched his flesh around his eyes. "I'd rather not."

"Yeah, it kind of turns your stomach like eating too much sugar, huh?"

"Something like that," he muttered, tensing up as a hand grasped his shoulder.

The culprit was Shizuru, smirking and smelling vaguely of radishes. "What, scared my brother's gonna give your sister cooties?"

He stared, uncertain. "'Cooties'?"

This sent Yusuke and Shizuru into an uproar, and even Kurama covered his face with one hand, obviously for show, not effect. Hiei glared at him patiently, and finally he offered, "It's a, ah … a superstition of the playground…" He trailed off, as the judgmental look on Hiei's face was practically palpable.

"Perhaps it's where you all belong," Hiei scoffed, turning his face away. They were all drunk anyway, or at least Yusuke and Shizuru. Kurama's face was flushed enough that his cheeks sported roses that wouldn't go away, and though he insisted it was the heat and he was fair-skinned after all, Hiei had his suspicions.

They were the remnants of the wedding party. The members of Kuwabara's matured gang had left for the train home already, and Botan had to return to her duties ("Just paperwork!" she'd stressed reassuringly, should nonspecifics cast an ominous shadow over the bride and groom's auspicious day). The newlyweds themselves would start their getaway honeymoon tomorrow; for tonight and tonight only Shizuru would bunk at the temple with Genkai, while Kuwabara and Yukina would take the car back to free reign over the house. "Just don't do something stupid and become crash-test dummies," the generous sister warned, slopping sake on the floor as she gestured violently with her hand.

"Oh that's an appropriate farewell to your brother on his wedding night!" Kuwabara shot back. "'Sides, I think I drank the least outta all you lushes."

"Takes one to know one, Kuwabara!" Yusuke bellowed. "And at least I've got genetic predisposition on my side, or, er, wait…" He pulled a face, while beside him Keiko rolled her eyes. "Okay, never mind that! But hey, since when do _you _use words like 'auspicious'?"

"Since _you _misuse ones like 'predisposition'!"

"Well _pardon me_, Teach!"

"You're drunk, Urameshi!" Kuwabara dismissed, then refocused his attention on Yukina, who watched the exchanged with wide eyes, not those of the scandalized, but rather the spectator drinking up all that was proffered by a show. "Don't worry about them, Yukina, they're just messing with us. I'm more than good to get us home, but I did keep a bottle out just for the two of us when we get there, if you want…" He paused, as out of the corner of his eye he noticed Hiei watching them, and followed with, "There's nothing wrong with that, right?"

"I don't think so, Kazuma…" Yukina answered him, tilting her head in just such a way that her peripheral gaze also brushed that of the other short demon across the room.

Hiei had passed much of the day in minimal speech, which was normal for him, when he shunned it. Words completely abandoned him now, however, and it was only with great effort that he recovered them, sort of—he barely managed to articulate a simple "Hn…" that failed to evolve into anything else.

"Uh, that means he approves," Kuwabara said in a low voice, never mind that with his ears Hiei could still hear it perfectly well. "Right?"

"Yes," Yukina affirmed, smiling at Hiei, who shifted on his feet. This far into the day, it was a wonder he wasn't in better synchronization with most of the other attendees; his overall sobriety only served to couple with his overall silence and make the occasion doubly, personally foreign to himself.

Kuwabara attempted to break it up. "Hey Shrimp, I know how you gotta feel—If it was _my _sister getting married, I'd be speechless too!"

It worked, after a fashion: Hiei smirked, and ducked, quickly reaching out and pulling Yukina down with him as something metallic glinted through the air over their heads. Poor Kuwabara, meanwhile, let out a piteous cry as Shizuru's assault found its target.

"Ah!" He stared quizzically at the weaponry as it bounced off his forehead and hit the floor, sliding.

"I mean it, Little Brother, mess up that car and Yukina's a widow before sundown tomorrow," Shizuru said darkly, and glancing aside at the pending "widow," added, "No offense to you, of course."

"We'll keep it in mind!" Yukina humored back, straightening as Hiei let up off her. He, meanwhile, stooped down to pick up the diverted ammunition.

"Here," he said, and offered the car keys to Kuwabara. "They're all being fools right now, but listen to what your sister said, and take care of mine."

Staring at him a moment, Kuwabara finally took the keys, and smiling a little, managed, "Well that goes without saying, Shorty."

Hiei nodded, and lifted his eyebrows, facial contortions suggesting that display represented a greater, less visible effort. "I know."

"Yeah," Kuwabara said, staring at the keys in his hand. His smile grew sly. "Well, Hiei, I'd ask you to have a drink with your new brother-in-law, but uh…"

Hiei rolled his eyes. "You're 'dummy' enough under usual circumstances, I won't help make it worse on this occasion."

"Well thanks, jackass!" Kuwabara laughed. "But yeah, later. And uh…" He scoped out the remaining crowd. "Thanks you guys for being here and listening to my speech a thousand times, but uh, we only got so many hours before the Dragon Lady over there comes home again, so uh, enjoy the leftover food and drink, and uh, later!"

"That's worse than your last speech!"

"Like you'll even remember it tomorrow, Urameshi!"

"You guys stop wooing each other for a minute; this _Dragon Lady _needs to tell her brother and sister 'good night'."

"_Eww_, could you not call it _wooing?_"

Yukina laughed, and then considered Hiei. "What about you guys?"

"What about us?" he mirrored evenly.

She leaned forward, looking around him. "I think…" she glanced furtively at him, and around him again. In an almost confiding tone: "I think Kurama might be intoxicated."

He looked at her. Then the slightest snort cracked open his face into a smug smile. "I'm not the only one, then," he said, and shrugged. "Don't worry. That hag will hate us all in the morning, because I think you two will be the last ones leaving tonight. It's her fault for offering up this location anyway."

"I'm glad," she said, then contracted her mouth thoughtfully. "Also, I thought … someone should be with her, too."

_Her _did not refer to Genkai anymore.

"And only two suitable," Hiei acknowledged, affecting nonchalance. "And obviously you're ineligible."

"Yeah," she agreed, unable to suppress a little smile, more giddy than reserved. Hiei considered it with cool amusement. She pressed her lips together, but the conforming curve of her face betrayed her still.

His own face began to co-conspire; she noticed, and pinked a little. "I—thank you, Hiei," she said.

He shrugged, but was saved the effort to vocalize some false brush-off, because the subject of their talk-about had emerged from her reserve on the fringes of the party. "You're leaving us now, then, Yukina?" Rhui asked.

"O-Only for a few days," Yukina replied hastily. "But yes, we'll be going soon. Once, eh, those two are done with their goodbyes…"

Neither of the two in question were Shizuru; the dynamic had reverted.

"This is why they don't get away teasing Kurama and I like they do each other," Hiei muttered. "And speaking of—." He purposely stopped there, making it his point of exeunt, and retreated to Kurama. One Koorime or the other in this context, he could handle; but both of them, together at this point of departure, were two Koorime too many for Hiei's nerves.

Meanwhile, there was something much more disarming in Kurama, who sat in an informal pose, reclined slightly while he watched Keiko, arguably the soberest person in that particular area, pull rank on the more belligerent Yusuke, that the newlywed (Hiei could almost feel the whorls of his brain contract a bit, neurons adjusting to that new charge) Kuwabara couple might leave for the first stage of their honeymoon in some version of peace.

For a moment he stood noncommittally over Kurama, taking part in the spectating. He snorted. "She's going to pull that tie so his head snaps off," he murmured, folding himself down beside the redhead.

"After party entertainment." Kurama looked at him, eyes glimmering. With more than mirth, Hiei was sure. "How are you?" Those glimmering eyes glanced, rather pointedly, from him, over to Yukina, and back again.

Hiei rolled his in turn. "I'm fine. We're fine." He pursed his lips. "I know I'm awkward at—this; but I think she's happy. But what about you?" He took his turn now to issue the appraising gaze, and didn't skimp on the authoritative stance. "Are you drunk?"

"I may be a bit tipsy…" replied Kurama elusively, a small, sheepish smile warming on his face as he broke eye contact.

Now Yusuke butted in, mercilessly. "Yeah, look at the flush on that face, Fox-boy's drunker than I am!"

"I am _not_," Kurama protested, unconfidently. "I'm fair-skinned; it may be a sunburn."

Hiei snorted at that excuse—Yukina and Rhui were both far fairer than the defendant at hand, and neither had come through the day sporting so much as a flush.

"Yeah, yeah," Yusuke egged on. "You're a ginger like Kuwabara, and gingers got no souls, so you compensate by filling up on _spirits_, hah!"

"I'm still here, Urameshi!"

"That makes no sense, I'm a Fox _spirit_…" Kurama trailed off indignantly, then sighed, and shrugged it off. "Well, Inari is the god of wine…"

Involuntarily Hiei laughed, and Kurama threw him a vaguely betrayed look. "Bacchus," Hiei defended casually.

"Did I say Bacchus?" Kurama asked, genuinely confused. "I mean—well, I suppose there are similarities." He smiled self-deprecatingly. "Would you help this Bacchus up, so I may say my goodbyes?"

Smirking, Hiei nonetheless took the hand that appealed up to him, grasped it firmly and pulled, and watched while Kurama walked mostly steadily over toward the bantering party, to extend his parting compliments, and probably a well-dressed bantering piece or two himself.

"So _that _is the pride of men," someone near Hiei remarked. He looked over and saw Rhui, watching the others, her expression thoughtful, not quite objective. Vaguely amused. "They're not as bad as they were made out to be."

"Those two?" Hiei would not endorse any naïveté. "Don't judge the whole based on _them_. Those two are strange, even matched against the rest of their kind. I toler—" He'd stumbled around a few upturned stones in that miasmic haze of honesty as it was recently, he may as well grit his teeth and stub his toe once more. "I _like _them," he admitted, adding, "I like _them. _I would not say so for most of the others. Those crones might have exaggerated up on their ivory island, but they weren't just telling scary stories. The world, any world, is full of bad people." Pause, then: "Has Yukina—has my sister—?"

"The men she first met, looking for you?" Rhui nodded. "She's told me; she's shown me the scars she still has." Hiei set his jaw, and nodded in turn. "But for all that, she seems more optimistic. I think that she thinks the world, any world, is full of good people."

Hiei didn't speak immediately. "She's right," he gave. "She's overly generous, she's in a privileged position to be so, but she's not delusional for all that. I just happen to be right too, my own position regardless."

Rhui listened with an intent look on her face, a slight bob of her head as though in understanding. "I think," she began thoughtfully, "that you're in a very formidable position, for taking up any sort of position. In the larger world, from what I've heard…" She glanced across the temple. "And perhaps at home as well?"

He knew what, whom she meant. He sighed soft, amused. "His position is far more formidable, and precarious; and still he's more generous than I am, I think." He shrugged. "I engage this world with more reservations than he or she have. I don't apologize for it."

"For all it might have done to both of them," Rhui replied, "they both entered it willingly." Strained: "You were never given that option…"

This was true; no consolations Hiei might have given her, or himself, had he been so inclined, would alter that; and he wasn't so inclined. But: "There may be valid reasons to insulate ourselves against the climate around us," he acknowledged. "But if we overdo it, we begin to experience odd effects of our own infliction, and often they're worse. I will not assimilate to this world; the closest I will ever come to _that _will be through him and her. I won't ruminate, either." Anymore.

"And neither will you." He gave her a look sterner than was perhaps necessary, but it was out of earnestness, not severity. "They both entered this world willingly, so did you. And so do I, by maintaining my ties to them, and … them." He considered the others. Those bonds were not necessarily physical, but they were palpable nonetheless, something essential that clung to you in the air as you moved. "Isolation is stagnation. Stagnation is living death. I'll take the heat, rather than freeze up."

She listened to him, her facial features so set that they had taken on a vaguely creased aspect. She maintained this appearance a moment or two past when he had stopped talking; and then her features softened, she tilted her head slightly, sighed, and issued a simple, matter-of-fact "Yes" off her lips. Curled her lips a little. "The heat, this is the heat. It feels more inclusive than the cold did. Even for an ice maiden, sometimes the cold hits a point where you just want to retreat from your own skin."

"Bone-piercing," Hiei offered. "I think." He'd never felt it himself.

"Perhaps," she humored. "Now the heat, it surrounds you, it invites you, even if it can be overwhelming. There's a—a wetness to it, I suppose, that one does not experience in the cold, not even in the snow up on the Isle."

"Humidity."

"Humidity," Rhui repeated thoughtfully. "I wonder," glancing toward him, "whether or not this is what it is like in the womb."

Not looking at her: "It is," he said casually.

"Hm," was all she said in turn.

Twilight fading to dark. Pressure evaporating out of the air around them, replaced by the lighter but nonetheless blatant presence of cicada calls. Potentially annoying, but Hiei minded them less than the persistent high-pitched whine of a mosquito in the ear. Closer, nearby, the sound of soberer guests corralling the drunker ones, readying accommodations for those imposing on Genkai, just for the night. Hiei could have left anytime he'd wanted. Kuwabara and Yukina had already gone.

Beside him Rhui murmured, "I think Hina would have been happy if she could have seen you turn out this way. Both of you."

Hiei clenched his teeth, biting into an overwhelmingly present absence. "Likewise," was the reply he chose, because "I wouldn't know" might sting too much, and that wasn't what he wanted.

Splash of red in his peripheral vision: once again, a most welcome diversion of focus. "You're drunk," he pronounced as Kurama approached them cautiously, probably as much out of usual decorum, as out of what appeared to be uncertainty of his own footing on the temple's smooth wooden floor.

"Mildly," Kurama admitted, then looked toward the remainder of the guests settling down. Glimmer in those green eyes—more mischief, Hiei suspected, than intoxication. "But I'm not inclined to lie down right away." Giving Rhui a look that was perfectly respectable even for its slightly solicitous nature, he implored, "May I take your kinsman for a while?"

Those softly affirming gestures of the flesh, the inflection of her voice—vaguely amused, Hiei thought, _warm_—"Of course. Perhaps I will better acquaint myself with my new… my neighbors? my relations?"

Her questions sounded more informational than theoretical. "One of them," Hiei figured, if he and Rhui were "kinsmen," less emphasis on the "men" aspect given the context. "The brunette with the metallic overhand."

"Hiei," Kurama murmured behind him.

"See you later," Hiei said to Rhui.

"Good night," was her mild-mannered reply. Hiei smirked as he slid out onto the porch after Kurama.

Who had abandoned the porch, and his socks, and strode barefoot through the grass towards the trees. "There are mosquitos," he warned over his shoulder when he heard Hiei's boots on the grass. "It feels light but it feels wet also; I believe the forecast called for some storms off toward the west tonight, but we'll only feel a fringe effect, if any, here."

"Like the mosquitos," Hiei said, watching Kurama bat his hand at something in the dusk.

The Fox nodded. "I've dealt with far more hazardous insects, but these ones do seem to have a penchant for sucking my blood."

"They probably think you taste good," Hiei bantered. "Wine-heavy."

Laughter. "Gods of wine have to maintain some cognizance of the situation," he said, looking not at Hiei but upward, as though trying to engage the moon. "Shall we have a bacchanal here, Hiei?"

Lifting an eyebrow: "And tear each other to pieces?"

Laughter, matching the evening in its thick, dark, slightly wet quality—all the warning Hiei had before the figure before him suddenly lunged, and sweet-smelling grass, vacated at the last minute by scores of tiny green bugs, cushioned his fall to the ground. He turned his face and bore one cheekbone to earth while the creature on top of him nibbled lightly at the skin of his throat.

"You're salty," Kurama murmured into the skin somewhere below his right earlobe.

Sweat, brine to the wine, sweet. Pressure in the atmosphere drawing out moisture, salt water, like the old, old sea. What had Rhui said, what it was like in the womb?

No snow queens tread here, no Yuki Onnas to devour him while he dreamt. No dragons or dark things beyond the one in his control. No pressure stagnating his insides. No paralysis.

No fires save the projectile one of amorousness. No objection from his companion when he let out a low growl and flipped them.

"Buttons," Kurama said when Hiei slid his fingers down the part in the redhead's shirt collar, and pulled on the first fastener to disrupt his path.

Hiei let out a snort that was meant to sound mildly insulted. He wasn't going to tear up one of Kurama's good shirts—just think about it. "Some bacchanal," he retorted, but he let the shirt's accruements be, and instead tugged on it until it gave up union with Kurama's pants and exposed its tails. Then he decided that for symmetry's sake he should similarly tug on the pants, and expose where Kurama's tails would have been on this otherwise human body…

Roses-and-cream flesh, thank the heat or the _spirits_, or both. Hiei traced an imaginary petal on the skin close to the base of the Fox's spine, and like a cat—or a fox, for all he knew—the body beneath his arched: bottoms up.

Hiei tugged at his own pants, restless, suppressed—_no more_—, intent on rendering rose-and-cream black-and-blue.

* * *

Kurama did not complain about the light bruises already beginning to bloom on his hip bones, his lower abdomen, his lower back where he could not see them. Hiei knew he wouldn't. First one had gone on a trip, then the other, then the wedding; separation and duty made them hot in defiance of the weather. No, rather than frown at the black-and-blue…

"You humans," Hiei muttered as Kurama squinted at some light green spots on his white shirt, "wear the most impractical shit for your affairs."

"Affairs?" Kurama repeated, giving him a smile lush with drink, sharpened slightly by some sentiment not quite innocent. "If it were affairs, it'd be a smear of red on the collar, not grass stains on the tails. But then, the governor of Gandhara doesn't wear lip stick…"

In the dark Hiei sat up and glowered. Kurama's teeth reflected a slight pearly sheen as his smile cracked open evil. "In the open at least," he finished. "I'm not privy to all the props used on that honeymoon."

Hiei contorted one eyebrow—_all _the props—but shook off the thought as his innards began to similarly contort. "Don't remind me," he said, and dropped back into the grass, eyes closed.

"Of bad information?" Kurama persisted, clearly enjoying himself. "Or the honeymoon in process right now?"

"Either," Hiei breathed, playing along. "It's all bad information. You're a mean drunk, by the way."

Kurama laughed—low laugh, subtle sadism—and finally discarded the shirt to one side. Hiei heard it billow out slightly before it rested on the grass that had previously soiled it. "It may be saved," Kurama reasoned, lying down beside him. "Or it may not. I don't mind the evening turning out this way, though."

_This way. _

"I'm content," Hiei murmured drowsily.

He could have almost turned out a number of other, less desirable ways. How currents blow one direction and then the other; how cyclones of opposing temperatures, temperaments battle it out, churning out their contents scathed or not seemingly by chance; how lightning illuminates a stormy skyscape like catharsis.

And at least temporarily, some of the pressure lifts.

**END.**


End file.
